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Edith Seidler (née Lipschütz) * 1915

Isestraße 115 (Eimsbüttel, Harvestehude)

1941 Lodz

Edith Seidler, née Lipschütz, born on 6 July 1915 in Kladau (today Klodowa in Poland), deported on 25 Oct. 1941 to Lodz

Edith Seidler grew up in Osnabrück. Her parents were Selma and Hugo Lipschütz. Edith had three siblings. The father, Hugo Lipschütz, worked as a decorator. Edith Seidler attended the Jewish school in Osnabrück. In about 1930, she started an apprenticeship as a milliner with Max Blank & Co. After she had completed her training, the company was "Aryanized” and called "Hutgeschäft Stern” ("Stern millinery”). The owners dismissed Edith Seidler in 1934 "for racial reasons.”

Upon this, she moved to Hannover, working there as a domestic help. From 1937 onward, she no longer found any work, subsequently residing with her parents in Osnabrück once again. In Aug. 1937, she moved to Hamburg, where her sister Elli Lipschütz lived already, on Hochallee. Initially, Edith resided on Oderfelder Strasse, later on Isestrasse. She continued to search for work as a domestic help. Due to an abortion, the Hannover Higher Regional Court (Oberlandesgericht) sentenced her to six weeks in prison on 29 July 1938.

One might assume that Nazi judges would have approved of abortions by Jewish women from a "racial” point of view. However, priority was given to the aspect of "educating” the "Aryan” woman. Since [in the Nazi ideology] the "Aryan” woman was meant bear as many children as possible for the "Führer,” abortion generally had to be a punishable offense:

In 1939, the Hannover Jury Court dealt with the contradictory interests of the Nazi state in relation to Jewish women having abortions and reached the following conclusion:

"An entirely free and unregulated authorization of abortion cannot be granted to persons of the Jewish racial affiliation living in Germany, no matter how undesirable the offspring may be from a völkische perspective. Doing so would hold the danger of gradually raising up commercial abortionists within these circles who might pose a serious threat to German offspring as well.”

Edith served her sentence in Hamburg from 22 Aug. until 3 Oct.1938. In the report of the "Hamburgische Justizvollzugsanstalt” (Hamburg penal institution), her appearance is described as follows: slender, 1.61 meters (some 5 ft 3 in) in height, dark hair, and brown eyes.

In 1939, she married the Jewish electrician Erich Seidler, who at the time worked as a domestic help as well. He emigrated to Britain shortly after the wedding, intending to establish himself there and then have Edith join him soon. However, due to the outbreak of war, this was no longer possible.

In the meantime, Edith Seidler worked for the Jewish family of the former bank director Mendel. She lived together with the Mendels as a subtenant of Mrs. Henriques at Isestrasse 115.

By this time, Edith’s parents had managed to emigrate to the USA. Gravely concerned, they tried to maintain contact with Edith. In connection with the so-called restitution proceedings (Wiedergutmachungsverfahren), Hugo Lipschütz stated, "I saw my daughter for the last time in May 1941, when I obtained my visa from the United States consulate in Hamburg. I spoke to her for the last time by phone from Berlin at the end of Aug. 1941. Shortly after our arrival in the USA, at the end of Sept. 1941, my wife and I wrote to our daughter. We did not receive a reply to this letter anymore.” Edith Seidler was deported to Litzmannstadt (Lodz) on 25 Oct. 1941.

Her parents commissioned a search for her after the war. A staff member of the Association of Persons Aggrieved by the Nuremberg Laws (Notgemeinschaft der durch die Nürnberger Gesetze Betroffenen) on Heimhuderstrasse, answered their request in 1946: "Perhaps you wish to file a search request with the World Jewish Congress …, if you have no clues as to where Mrs. Seidler would have gone, provided she survived this dreadful time in the East after all.”

Edith Seidler did not survive. Her husband, Erich Seidler, escaped the Shoah in Canada.


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

Stand: January 2019
© Maike Grünwaldt

Quellen: 1; 4; 8; AfW, 060715; StaH, 242-1 Gefängnisverwaltung, Abl. 13; Schwurgericht Hannover, 7.2.1939, Deutsche Justiz 1939, S. 572, in: Herbert Onstein, Die Entwicklung der Straftatbestände der Abtreibung, Münster, Diss. 1996, S. 118.
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