Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Malchen Hirsch (née Fränkel) * 1881

Hammer Landstraße 158 (Hamburg-Mitte, Hamm)

HIER WOHNTE
MALCHEN HIRSCH
GEB. FRÄNKEL
JG. 1881
DEPORTIERT 1941
MINSK
ERMORDET

Malchen Hirsch, née Fränkel, born on 22 Oct. 1881 in Obbach, deported on 18 Nov. 1941 to Minsk

Hammer Landstrasse 158

Malchen Hirsch, the widow of Max Hirsch, was the youngest child and only daughter of Moses Fränkel, born on 29 Mar. 1835 in Obbach, and Babette, née Adler, born on 10 Nov. 1842 in Urspringen/Lower Franconia, who had married in Schweinfurt in 1865. Her father belonged to an old-established family of Jewish traders, livestock dealers, and butchers with their own landed property in Obbach near Schweinfurt (Lower Franconia). Malchen grew up with her brothers Wolf (born in 1869), Abraham (born in 1871), Jacob (born in 1874), David (born in 1876), and Hermann (born in 1880) in Obbach. The father passed away when she was eight years old, the mother in 1909.

We do not know what led Malchen to go to Hamburg. Her brother Jacob Fränkel (see corresponding biography), seven years her senior, had settled with his family in Wandsbek where he ran a store selling men’s fashions and footwear. His family included his wife Ida, née Ehrlich, born on 13 May 1878 in Bamberg, and the children Marta (born on 26 May 1905), Herta (on 9 Sept. 1906), and Max (on 23 June 1910), all of them born in Wandsbek. Malchen Hirsch’s brothers David and Abraham died in 1926 and 1935, respectively.

Malchen married Max Hirsch of the same age, born on 15 Nov. 1881 in Hamburg. Contrary to the customs of the time, the wedding did not take place in the bride’s place of residence but in that of the groom. At the civil wedding on 11 July 1911 in Hamburg, her brother Jacob from Wandsbek represented her family.

At the time he got married, Max Hirsch still lived with his parents, Ephraim Ferdinand Hirsch (born on 8 May 1836 in Hamburg) and Emma, née Posselburg (born on 2 Oct. 1836 in Altona), on Schlachterstrasse in Hamburg-Neustadt. He had been born at the local Lazarus Gumpel-Stift, which during his childhood was replaced by the new building of the Marcus Nordheim-Stift. The father was a master shoemaker, and the workshop, store, and residential quarters were located on the ground floor of Schlachterstrasse 47. Max remained the only child.
The only thing we know about the training of Malchen and Max Hirsch is that Max became a merchant. Their marriage remained childless.

Only six weeks after Max and Malchen Hirsch’s wedding, Ephraim Hirsch passed away, on 31 Aug. 1911. His widow Emma stayed on Schlachterstrasse for a while, then temporarily lived at Banksstrasse 119 (Klostertor) with Hirsch, interrupted by a period in the "infirmary” ("Siechenheim”) of the Jewish Community before being admitted to the Samuel Levy-Stift on Bundesstrasse in 1915, where she died on 7 May 1918.

It was not possible to establish where Max and Malchen Hirsch stayed in the ten years after their wedding. With their joining of the Hamburg German-Israelitic Community on 15 Nov. 1921, they are documented for the first time as its members, and in the following year, they were listed in the Hamburg directory with a residential and business address. According to this, Max Hirsch ran a footwear store at Hammerbrookstrasse 30 and resided at Banksstrasse 119. Then they left the working-class neighborhood and relocated their place of residence to Hamm on the edge of the sandy heath land (Geestrand), to Hammer Landstrasse 158, though they did also keep the business on Hammerbrookstrasse until 1931. In 1929, they opened a second one at Lange Reihe 32, which continued to exist until 1936. In 1931, they moved to the vicinity of the latter, to Rostockerstrasse 70. In 1935, they relocated their residence to Grindelallee 7, though moving soon afterward to Heinrich-Barth-Strasse 3. In 1930, a man by the name of Albert Hirsch was also registered as living with them on Hammer Landstrasse, but his identity is unclear.

With the exception of 1924 and 1931/32 as well as 1932/33, Max and Malchen Hirsch paid regular contributions to the Jewish Community relative to their changing annual earnings until the closure of their businesses in 1938. They had joined the Synagogue Association (Synagogenverband), the orthodox fraction within the Community.

Shortly after their move to Heinrich-Barth-Strasse 6 and two days before his fifty-fifth birthday, Max Hirsch passed away. He had suffered from diabetes, fell into a coma on 13 Nov. 1936, and died the same day in the Israelite Hospital. He was buried in the Jewish Cemetery on Ilandkoppel in Ohlsdorf, in a double grave and with space set aside on the gravestone for the inscription for his wife.

Malchen Hirsch continued to manage the store at Lange Reihe 32 and was henceforth listed as an independent member of the Jewish Community and assessed for taxes accordingly. However, in 1939, her income was so small that she was not assessed for any tax payments at all. Parallel to the increasing financial straits of the Community, in 1940 she was then made to pay a "head tax” ("Kopfgeld”) of one reichsmark a month, even though she owned only a few hundred reichsmark. In 1941, her assets were 700 RM, which were not tapped anymore. Her brother had moved with his wife Ida and their son Max from Wandsbek to Heinrich-Barth-Strasse as well, whereas the two daughters had emigrated. On 25 Apr. 1941, Jacob Fränkel was found dead by Chapel 12 on the Ohlsdorf Cemetery. The forensic investigation found that he had died of cardiac arrest.

Malchen Hirsch moved one more time, living as a subtenant of E. Loebenstein at Dillstrasse 15. The building became a so-called "Jews’ house” ("Judenhaus”) whose occupants were concentrated there prior to their "resettlement” ("Aussiedlung”).
She received the order for reporting to the transport departing to the East on 18 Nov. 1941, a transport destined for the ghetto in Minsk.
On the last deportation train in the fall of 1941 from Hamburg to the East, her sister-in-law Ida and nephew Max Fränkel were deported to Riga, where all traces of their lives disappear.
Malchen Hirsch’s brother Hermann, along with sister-in-law Rosa, the widow of her brother David, were deported to Krasnystaw on 24 Apr. 1942 and murdered near Lublin.


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

Stand: April 2018
© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 8; 9; AB; StaH 332-5 Standesämter, 656-511/1911; 790-336/1918; 1053-414/1936; 2009-5345/1881; 3172-419/1911; 332-8 Meldewesen, K 6260, 6261; 352-5 Gesundheitsamt Todesbescheinigungen, StA 2a/414/1936; 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden, 390 Wählerliste 1930, 390 Mitgliederverzeichnis 1935/36; Weiße Steuerkartei; 992 e 2 Deportationslisten Band 2; JFHH G-230; Louven, Astrid, Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Wandsbek, Biographische Spurensuche; www.alemannia-judaica.de, Juden in Obbach, Zugriff 20.9.2015; Dank für freundliche Mitteilungen aus dem Staatsarchiv Würzburg und Gemeindearchiv Obbach/Euerbach von Elisabeth Böhrer, per E-Mail 5.10.2015.
Zur Nummerierung häufig genutzter Quellen siehe Link "Recherche und Quellen".