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Stolperstein für Franziska Müller
© Wolfram Becker

Franziska Müller (née Oppenheimer) * 1867

Ohlendorffstraße 5 (Hamburg-Mitte, Hamm)

1940 Gurs / Frankreich
Rivesaltes
ermordet 28.04.1942

further stumbling stones in Ohlendorffstraße 5:
Emilie Müllner, Rosa Müllner, Ivan Müllner

Emilie Müllner, née Horwitz, born on 9 Jan. 1858 in Hamburg, deported on 9 June 1943 to Theresienstadt, death on 31 Dec. 1943
Ivan Müllner, born on 18 Nov. 1887 in Hamburg, deported on 22 Oct. 1940 to Gurs/France, deported further to Rivesaltes, death on 7 Mar. 1942
Rosa Müllner, born on 29 Apr. 1889 in Hamburg, deported on 25 Oct. 1941 to Lodz
Franziska Müller, née Oppenheimer, born on 17 Nov. 1867 in Alsheim near Worms, deported on 22 Oct. 1940 to Gurs/France, deported further to Rivesaltes, death on 28 Apr. 1942

Emilie Müllner was born on 9 Jan. 1858 as Emilie Horwitz in Hamburg. On 25 Nov. 1886, she married Moses Levy Müllner, called Abrahamson, born on 1 June 1852 in Kelm/Kellmy in Russia. Her father, Wulff Horwitz, had moved to Hamburg from Lübeck and operated a lottery vending store and later a commission business. Her mother Bertha, née Bieber, was 15 years younger and not a native of Hamburg either; she came from Eisleben/Southeastern Harz. The grandparents on the mother’s side stayed in Eisleben, whereas the grandparents on the father’s side also moved to Hamburg. When Emilie was three years old, her sister Ernestine was born, and in 1868 her brother Martin.

Moses Levy Müllner’s father, a teacher, was Izick Abramowitz Müllner, from which derived the name affix of "called Abrahamson.” Nothing is known about his mother. In 1886, Moses Levy Müllner, called Abrahamson, who had Prussian citizenship, moved to Hamburg. He had civic rights conferred to him only three years later. The financial precondition for obtaining this status was his well-paid employment as a traveling salesman for the Gebrüder Nagel (Nagel Bros.) Company, which traded in oil and grease products as well as importing Russian crude oil, a job in which his language skills probably bore fruit. Along with him, his wife Emilie and the two children Ivan (born on 18 Nov. 1887) and Rosa (29 Apr. 1889) obtained Hamburg citizenship as well. On 25 June 1890, the Hamburg Senate passed a decision according to which henceforth Moses Levy had permission to call himself Müllner only. Daughter Selma was born on 15 Aug. 1890, already a native of Hamburg. The Müllner and Horwitz families were members of the German-Israelitic Community in Hamburg.

After several moves during the first years of the marriage, traceable via the children’s entries in the register of births, Moses Levy Müllner appears for the first time in 1891 with his own entry in the Hamburg directory, listed at Seilerstrasse 25 in St. Pauli, his occupation being listed as "city traveling salesman” ("Stadtreisender”). There, in St. Pauli, their fourth child, Sarah, was born on 11 Dec. 1891. The youngest child was Alexander, born exactly on the same day two years later.

Emilie’s siblings also got married. Ernestine entered into matrimony with the shoemaker Samuel Mecklenburg, 17 years her senior, who had been married once before. The union remained childless. Martin Horwitz married Gertrud Feibel in 1899.They had four children: Edith (in 1899), Adolf (in 1904), Leonie (in 1908), and Hugo, who was born in 1916. At the turn of the century, the Müllner family moved to the Grindel quarter where Emilie’s parents and siblings lived as well. Her father, Wulff Horwitz, passed away in 1912 at an advanced age, her mother Bertha the following year at the age of 79. They were buried in the Ohlsdorf Jewish Cemetery.

Ivan and Alexander Müllner became merchants like their father; the daughters office employees. Ivan Müllner went into trading with hides. Until 1915, when he was drafted into the military, he worked for the Bachrach & Loeb Company located at Cremon 11/12. During the war years, the arrears in membership dues to the Jewish Community accumulated but the outstanding contributions were cancelled after his return from the field in 1918. Alexander also fought in World War I and returned to Hamburg; however, he fell ill with scarlet fever and died in the military hospital on 27 Aug. 1918, at the age of 24. He was also buried in the Jewish Cemetery on Ilandkoppel [in Ohlsdorf]. Two months later, Moses Levy Müllner, 66 years old, passed away. He was probably buried in the Langenfelde Jewish Cemetery. Emilie Müllner was 60 years old at the time, and none of her children was married; they continued residing at Grindelallee 23. Starting in 1919, the German-Israelitic Community listed her as a "woman of independent means” ("Privatiere”).

Additional strokes of fate followed: the death of her daughter Sarah in 1921; that of her brother Martin at the age of only 54 in 1922; and that of her sister Ernestine in 1924; as well as the separation from Selma due to the latter’s emigration to New York in 1923. There are clues to gainful employment pursued by Emilie Müllner, but it was impossible to substantiate them.

Her son Ivan became an authorized signatory with Aaquist & Gottlieb, also a company importing hides. He married Else Müller, born on 18 Nov. 1887 in Dortmund, who was Jewish as well. Her father, Albert Müller, lived there as a merchant, and her mother, Franziska Müller, née Oppenheimer, born on 17 Nov. 1867, had moved there from Alsheim near Worms. In 1925, Else and Ivan Müllner’s only child, Kurt Alexander, was born.

Emilie’s daughter Rosa remained unmarried and worked as a stenographer and correspondent. In 1927, Ivan Müllner rented an apartment in Hamburg-Hamm at Ohlendorffstrasse 5, part of the building ensemble numbered 3–11 that was built in 1910. His mother and his sister Rosa move in there along with him and his family. Their neighbors were merchants and teachers.

Samuel Mecklenburg passed away in the retirement home of the Jewish Community at Sedanstrasse 23 in 1928; Gertrud Horwitz and her children had stayed at Isestrasse 67 after the deaths of the husband and father, Martin Horwitz.

Until the beginning of Nazi rule, Ivan Müllner earned a good income, but then he became unemployed and failed to find any new employment. Rosa Müllner had moved out in 1932, subsequently changing apartments several times. Like her brother, she was initially dismissed but in contrast to him, she found a new job after each dismissal.

As of 1 Jan. 1935, Ivan Müllner left Hamburg with his family and moved to Mannheim. The reasons for this move are not known. Aged 77, Emilie Müllner remained behind in the apartment by herself, but only a few days later, coming from Dortmund, Franziska Müller, her son’s 68-year-old mother-in-law, joined her. On 29 Mar. 1935, she too departed for Mannheim, apparently staying there together with her daughter and her family until the end of her life.

Emilie Müllner gave up the apartment on Ohlendorffstrasse and moved to Grindelallee 16 as a subtenant of the merchant Peter Jacob. Her nieces Edith and Leonie as well as her nephew Adolf Horwitz emigrated. Starting in 1939, Emilie Müllner lived for three years in the retirement home of the Jewish Community at Grünestrasse 5 in Altona, operated by the "Commission for Welfare” of the Jewish Community from 14 July 1941 onward.

Franziska Müller, along with her daughter Else, her son-in-law Ivan, and her grandson Kurt Müllner, was deported on 22 Oct. 1940 from Mannheim to Southern France. Without any agreement with the Vichy Government, the local Gauleiter arranged for the transport of approx. 6,500 Jews from Baden, the Palatinate, and the Saarland to the Gurs internment camp in Southern France located in the unoccupied part of France, including about 2,000 persons from Mannheim alone. While in Berlin the deportation trains were planned, the Jewish population received no information about the impending operations. In many cases, the deportees had less than two hours until the deportation, which entailed permission to take along 50 kilograms (110 lbs) of luggage.

The Gurs camp was not prepared for taking in the deportees and even in the ensuing months, it was not adequately provided with food, fuel, or medical care. After Franziska Müller and her family had survived the winter despite all of the adversities, they were deported further to the internment camp in Rivesaltes (Southern France), where Franziska Müller was registered on 14 Mar. 1941. One year later, on 28 Apr. 1942, she died. Ivan Müllner too did not survive the camp, perishing on 7 Mar. 1942. Else and her son Kurt Müllner, by then 17 years old, managed to escape. They lived illegally in France until the liberation from the German occupation.

In the very end, Rosa Müllner resided in Hamburg at Brahmsallee 13. There, she received the order to report to the transport for "Development in the East” ("Aufbau im Osten”) to Lodz on 25 Oct. 1941. Afterward, all traces of her disappear. Gertrud and Hugo Horwitz were deported on the next eastward transport on 8 Nov. 1941 to Minsk (see Stolpersteine in der Hamburger Isestrasse), where they perished under circumstances unknown.

Emilie Müllner, old and alone, remained behind. When the home on Grünestrasse in Altona was dissolved in Sept. 1942, the Jewish Community quartered her at Beneckestrasse 6, its community facilities. From there, she was deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto on 9 June 1943, where she died at New Year’s of 1943, aged almost 86.


Translator: Erwin Fink

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2017
© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: 1, 4, 5, 7; BA GB, VZ; div. AB; StaH, 332-5, 940+198/1928; 2158+5496/1887; 2198+1852/1889; 2262+5024/1891; 8011+139/1912; 8015+88/1913; 8068+235/1922; 8077+304/1924; 9766+2786/1918; 9767+3357/1918; 332-7, B III 35067; 332-8, K 4367, 6286; 522-1, o. Sign. Mitgliederzählung 1928; 390; 391; 922 e 2 Bd. 5; jfhh; Stadtarchiv Mannheim, E-Mail, 14.2.2013; Stadtarchiv Dortmund Geburtsregister; ITS Arolsen, E-Mail 2.4.2013; de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagner-Bürckel-Aktion, 3.4.2013; Christa Fladhammer/Maike Grünwaldt, Stolpersteine in der Hamburger Isestraße, Hamburg 2010.
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