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Clara Ohnstein mit Tochter Lucie, 1893
© Privatbesitz

Clara Ohnstein (née Brasch) * 1867

Borgfelder Straße 20 (Hamburg-Mitte, Borgfelde)

HIER WOHNTE
CLARA OHNSTEIN
GEB. BRASCH
JG. 1867
DEPORTIERT 1942
THERESIENSTADT
ERMORDET 18.11.1942

Clara Ohnstein, née Brasch, born 25 May 1867 in Berlin, deported 19 July 1942 to Theresienstadt where she died 18 Nov. 1942

Borgfelder Straße 20 (Borgfelder Straße 23)

"What can I possibly tell you about my grandmother? She led a simple life, had no income of her own and had to live off of the ‘Wohle’ – welfare as they called it back then. Once in a while she embroidered monograms on handkerchiefs and bed linens and earned 15 cents per item. You could buy 5 rolls with that back then."

When Otto G. Schade, at the age of 88, gave me this information in Mar. 2009, his remarks coincided with my understanding of Clara Ohnstein’s simple life at Borgfelderstraße 23. I had gained my information from the few remaining sources available. However she had led another life before that modest one began.

Clara Ohnstein was born on 25 May 1867 as Clara Brasch in Berlin, where her parents Louis Brasch and his wife Sara, née Friedemann, lived as assimilated Jews. Four years later, on 15 January 1871, her brother Max Leo Brasch was born. Her mother died before the children were of age. From the age of nineteen Clara lived in the household of her wealthy uncle Emil Brasch in Breslau. Her father Louis Brasch married in second marriage his sister-in-law Ida Friedemann, a sister of Sara. He died in April 1891 in Berlin, half a year before Clara's wedding.

Clara Brasch, now 24 years old, entered into marriage on 31 Oct. 1891 with Julius Ohnstein, twelve years her senior, and moved to Hamburg where he lived. Julius Ohnstein came from Pleschen where he was born on 24 Dec. 1854 and which at the time was in the Prussian province of Posen. His parents, Pincus Ohnstein and Bertha, née Flatau, were also assimilated Jews. Julius was the oldest of their eight sons and two daughters. Julius Ohnstein became a merchant and served his military duty in the unit Landsturm I.

In 1883 he moved to Hamburg. He ran a successful "liqueur factory” at Zippelhaus 10, the earnings of which made it possible for him to request Hamburg citizenship in Dec. 1892. It took six years until he and his wife Clara were granted citizenship, and in early 1898 he took the citizen’s oath. At first the couple lived in Eilbek at Lübeckerstraße 39. It was there that Clara Ohnstein gave birth to their daughter Lucie on 26 Jan. 1893. Lucie remained their only child. Lucie Ohnstein received a solid general education at the Paulsenstift School and then attended the Gronesche Trade School. She got her first job at a cigar import-export company. Later she moved to the Dresdner Bank.

The Brasch and Ohnstein families were also connected in other ways: Clara's brother Max Leo married Paula Bertha Ohnstein from Pleschen, a half-sister of her husband. Her marriage produced two sons, Ludwig and Heinz.

When the old buildings at Am Zippelhaus were to be torn down around 1908 in order to make space for new buildings, Julius Ohnstein received notice on the production rooms of his liqueuer factory. He moved his home and operation to Reismühle 16 in Hohenfelde, however his new start failed. Out of grief he took his life on 2 July 1909. He left his wife and daughter nothing more than a suicide note.

Unprovided for, Clara Ohnstein gave up her middle-class home and moved with her seventeen-year-old daughter into a two-room apartment with a spacious kitchen but without a bathroom at Borgfelderstraße 23. Without any training or work experience, the now 42-year-old had no other choice than to draw on welfare to pull herself and her daughter through. Although she was a member of the community, Clara Ohnstein was not issued a culture tax card when Hamburg’s German-Israelite Community instituted its tax card system in 1913, probably because she was destitute. She still retained her right to vote as a community member.

Lucie Ohnstein, who in the meantime had become a bank employee, married her fiancé Theodor Otto S. in 1919. He belonged to the Evangelical-Lutheran Church. For his sake she left the Jewish Community. Theodor Otto S., born on 5 Apr. 1889 in Burg near Magdeburg, returned unharmed from World War I as a sergeant decorated with the EK II medal. He was unable to return to his previous employment as an import merchant for Russian oil, yet after an intensive effort he found a position with a petroleum trading company. Lucie and Theodor Otto S. moved into a three-room apartment at Eidelstedter Weg 73 in Eimsbüttel where their son Otto was born on 2 Jan. 1921.

He was baptized in his parent’s living room in 1922 by Pastor Oskar Jaenisch from Hauptkirche St. Katharinen, and he was taught Christian traditions. Every other Sunday, Clara Ohnstein visited her daughter’s family. She developed a close relationship with her grandson who frequently went to see her in Borgfelde, taking him along on visits with the few friendships her limited means allowed her to maintain. Her son-in-law, by now an authorized representative of his petroleum trade company, took over the company in 1930 when it began making losses during the world economic crisis. He downsized the company and continued running it independently.

After fourteen years of marriage, Lucie and Otto S. had a church wedding in 1933, and Lucie was baptized at the same time. Once again, Pastor Jaenisch conducted the official act in the privacy of the S. Family’s living room .

Initially the anti-Jewish measures instituted after Hitler took power in Feb. 1933 did not touch Clara Ohnstein directly, but her son-in-law's declining business made any further financial help impossible. She had no choice but to turn to welfare. On August 31, 1933, she applied for support for ongoing maintenance. The monthly rent for her two-room apartment was 34.65 RM, which was a lot according to the Welfare Office, but the welfare worker was committed to her receiving 5 RM a week anyway. In addition there was money for firing and medical expenses. Clara Ohnstein's well-kept, well-furnished apartment, her own well-groomed appearance and her calm, reserved nature had had a positive effect.
Her grandson Otto, however, who was attending Bismarck High School, was not allowed to join the German Youngsters in the Hitler Youth (Deutsches Jungvolk) "due to his non-Aryan heritage for the well-known principle of our movement”. A request to the Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter (regional leader of the NSDAP) in this matter was rejected in Mar. 1934 with reference to the regulations of the Reich administration. Perhaps more painful was the rejection by a close friend who did not want to jeopardize his promotion within the Hitler Youth through his friendship with a "half-Jew”. Protected by their "privileged mixed marriage”, the S. Family otherwise did not experience any drastic restrictions to their lives at first.

Clara Ohnstein, meanwhile noticeably affected by the anti-Semitic measures, had to leave her apartment in Borgfelderstraße after 26 years after her nephew failed to provide monthly support and had to look for a cheaper place to stay. For a monthly rent of 20 RM for an unfurnished room she moved in 1936 as a subtenant to the Cohn family in Sillemstraße 17 in Eimsbüttel, where she once again settled in at home. She returned there after a four-week stay in the Eppendorf hospital in the autumn of 1937. She had been hit by a car at the corner of Heußweg/Osterstraße and had suffered a severe concussion. The Welfare Office then wanted to stop paying the rent, but the responsible social worker intervened in her favour, so that her familiar surroundings remained intact.

She was closer to her children now, but her grandson visited her less often in an effort to hide his Jewish heritage, which became even more important in 1937 when he started training at a gas station corporation. When Clara Ohnstein’s landlords, the Cohn Family, immigrated to Sweden, she moved a few houses down the street to Walter Golenzer (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de) at Sillemstraße 3.

Clara Ohnstein and her daughter Lucie painfully experienced being disparged as Jewish women. They were forced to adopt the name "Sara”. Their identification cards not only bore a "J”, the fee for issuing the identification card was higher than that of Clara’s son-in-law and Lucie’s husband Theodor Otto.

In July 1940, Clara Ohnstein once again was forced to move. It is not known whether she even tried to find another sublet. The Jewish Community housed her in the Marcus Nordheim Foundation at Schlachterstraße 40/42, which later became a "Jewish house”, where she lived the next two years. In 1941 she received her own tax card for the first time, without ever being assessed for taxation.

A further major setback in her life likewise took place in 1940. One month after the war started, her grandson had finished his training as a petroleum merchant and afterwards worked one year in the head office of Hamburg’s petroleum trading company, which had in the meantime become a monopoly. He left Hamburg to attend to customers of his father’s oil company in all of Saxony and lived as a "furnished gentleman” in Leipzig. It was there that he met his future wife Hildegard R. and moved in with her. She was "of German blood”. Due to the Nuremberg Laws regarding race and additional decrees, they were not allowed to get married at the time. Grandmother and grandson stayed in contact through letters.

Clara Ohnstein's state welfare support, as for all Jews, initially administered by the Special Service B set up especially for them and transferred to the Jewish Religious Association in 1941, which now paid for their maintenance.

Theodor Otto S. was called up for duty in a police unit stationed in Poland, but his orders were revoked once it became known that he was married to a Jewish woman. He continued to run his company. He resisted repeated attempts by the Gestapo to get him to divorce his wife.

When her great-grandson Lutz was born in Leipzig in Sept. 1942, Clara Ohnstein was already in Theresienstadt. Prior to her forced deportation on 19 July 1942, she wrote her grandson Otto a letter of farewell:

"My dear, dear boy, As always I read your letter with joy, and today I must write you in such a sad state, sadder than ever, this farewell letter is written with tears. On Saturday our home will be closed, we are going to Thersienstadt near Prague, our directors are coming with us, it has come as such a surprise for all of us, they always said the old people would stay here, but only the crippled among us are staying, 80 and 90-year-olds will be going. It is not worth it to write about the details of all the cruelty imposed upon us. I only ask, if it is possible, that you write by Friday morning when all of our things will be transported. I don’t know if I will ever be able to write you again from there, I don’t believe so, and hope that I will soon be done. So, my only golden boy, remember your grandmother who has loved you more than anything else. Your mother was here until now Saturday and yesterday, perhaps she will come today. We only learned of it Friday. You can imagine what a state we are in, everyone is wailing, one person upsets the other. I can’t go on, my sweetheart, I will take along a couple of pictures of you. Maybe I can write you a postcard along the way. New changes come in daily from our director, the telephone here does not stop ringing. Stay healthy and 1,000 kisses from your unhappy grandma."

After that letter, there was no further correspondence with her family.
On 19 July 1942 the old people's home in Schlachterstraße 40/42 was completely evacuated. Clara Ohnstein took with her, besides the necessities of personal clothing, warm bedclothes that her daughter had bought especially. She had to leave everything else behind and hand over the apartment keys to the Gestapo.

She never learned of the birth of her great-grandchild. Clara Ohnstein died on 18 Nov. 1942 in the Theresienstadt ghetto at the age of 75. She was a victim of an enteritis epidemic that had been going around since mid summer and claimed 3,000 lives.

In May 1943, Otto S. began doing forced labor. At first he was assigned to a steel wholesaler in Leipzig. Instead of using his business training, he was used as a warehouse worker. After that he had an assignment with the Todt Organization near Wroclaw, and as of Oct. 1944 he had to serve in a salt mine near Weimar where, at a depth of 600 meters, explosives were used to create halls which were then set up for the production of V2 missiles. The camp dissolved as the US Army approached, and he reached his family in Leipzig on 5 Apr. 1945. On 2 July 1945, the day when the Americans transferred the town to the "Russians”, he and Hildegard R. were married. After the war, back in Hamburg their wedding was entered in the wedding registry as having taken place on 2 July 1941.

Two and a half years after her mother, Lucie S. also received orders for deportation to Theresienstadt, without knowing whether she would find her mother there alive. Like other Jewish men and women living in a "privileged mixed marriage”, the Gestapo sent her on 7 Feb. 1945 orders for a "special, urgent work assignment abroad”. She was to appear one week later at 3:00 p.m. at the former Talmud Torah School. However her general practitioner Dr. Neugärtner attested to bursitis in her elbow. As a result, she was deferred from the assignment. Since it was the last deportation before the end of the war, she was not called up again. Thus Clara Ohnstein’s only daughter and her daughter’s family lived to see the end of the terror years, separately in the British and American then Russian occupation zones. It was not until several months later that the Jewish Community notified them of Clara Ohnstein’s death.


Translator: Suzanne von Engelhardt/Additions Hildegard Thevs/Beate Meyer
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: May 2019
© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: 1; 3; 4; 5; 7; StaH, 213-13, 10153 (Restitution); 351-14, 1647 (Fürsorge); 552-1 Jüdische Gemeinden, 992 e 2, Bd. 5; Abl. 1993/01, 32 u. 40; 332-4 Aufsicht über die Standesämter, nachträglich anerkannte Ehen; 332-7 Staatsangehörigkeitsaufsicht, B III 43581; Adler, Theresienstadt; Mitteilungen von Angehörigen, Uri Shani und Francois Cellier; div. Urkunden aus Privatbesitz. Archivum panstwowe w Kaliszu, Heiratsregister Max Leo Brasch.
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