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Ida Hemmerdinger (née Igersheimer) * 1872

Hasselbrookstraße 68 (Wandsbek, Eilbek)

HIER WOHNTE
IDA HEMMERDINGER
GEB. IGERSHEIMER
JG. 1872
DEPORTIERT 1941
RIGA
ERMORDET

further stumbling stones in Hasselbrookstraße 68:
Margarethe Hemmerdinger

Ida Hemmerdinger, née Igersheimer, born on 19 Feb. 1872 in Heilbronn, deported on 6 Dec. 1941 to Riga
Margarethe Hemmerdinger, born on 22 Feb. 1905 in Strasbourg, deported on 6 Dec. 1941 to Riga

Hasselbrookstrasse 68

Ida Hemmerdinger, née Igersheimer, and her husband Nathan had behind them an eventful life in the area of Baden and Alsace-Lorraine before settling in Hamburg. Both came from Jewish families and they had three daughters, Auguste, born on 6 Dec. 1896, Erna, born on 6 Feb. 1898, and Margarethe, born on 22 Feb. 1905.

Ida Hemmerdinger was the oldest of the children of the merchant Hermann Igersheimer and his wife Hanna, née Levi, from Heilbronn. Five years after her, sister Bertha was born, two years later brother Otto.

Ida’s husband, Nathan, had been born as Nathan Hemmerdinger in Eichstetten in the Kaiserstuhl region (Baden) on 6 June 1864. He was the tenth of eleven children of the sexton in a synagogue [shammes] Maier Hemmerdinger and his wife Auguste, called Guddel, née Ullmann. Their ancestors came from Alsace. The traces of the Hemmerdinger family in Eichstetten disappear before the turn of the century. Guddel Hemmerdinger died after 50 years of marriage in 1895; her husband Maier outlived her by three years.

The Igersheimers’ daughter, Ida, and Nathan Hemmerdinger, seven years her senior, got married in Feb. 1896, probably in Karlsruhe.

Whether Nathan Hemmerdinger lived in Luxembourg already prior to getting married or moved there only afterward is not known; at any rate, the couple resided there when their first child, Auguste, was born in 1896. Two years later, daughter Erna was also born in Luxembourg. Around the turn of the century, the family moved to Strasbourg, where Margarethe was born.

When after the First World War and the conclusion of the Versailles Treaties Alsace became French, Nathan Hemmerdinger opted for Germany and left the area. The family initially found accommodation in Heilbronn with Ida Hemmerdinger’s relatives.

Margarethe, the daughter born in Strasbourg, had attended the girls’ secondary school there until the expulsion by the French authorities in 1919. Whether she continued her schooling in Heilbronn is not known. Erna, the middle daughter, received training as a dental technician.

Nathan Hemmerdinger went to Hamburg searching for a job and an apartment. He found an apartment at Gneisenaustrasse 29 in Hoheluft-West, had his family follow him there, and started his own business, an agency for footwear. When he joined the German-Israelitic Community on 6 Dec. 1922, he still paid 300 RM (reichsmark) in community dues for the current month. For the following year, he was assessed at 2,000 RM, but by mid-year, payment was waived because apparently, being a refugee from Alscace, he had had his assets confiscated [by the French authorities] without the German Reich compensating him. Margarethe worked in her father’s company and paid, after Nathan Hemmerdinger had overcome the difficulties of the inflation period and the business had been consolidated by 1925, regular contributions into the salaried employees’ insurance scheme. After that, Nathan Hemmerdinger paid dues to the Jewish Community only once more; he died on 5 July 1926 at the age of 62. After his death, his business ceased to exist, and his daughter Margarethe had to look for a new job. She found employment with the Unger Company, a fashion and footwear store on Alsterarkaden, maintaining the family with her income from then on. Her regular income can also be construed from her payments of Jewish religious taxes (Kultussteuer) to the Jewish Community.

The political upheaval after the transfer of power to Adolf Hitler made itself felt drastically to Ida Hemmerdinger and her daughters, particularly when the Unger Company was "Aryanized.” Whether their move to Hasselbrookstrasse 68 was connected to that was impossible to clarify. Margarethe once again found a job, this time as a shoe sales assistant with the Salamander Company, and, when she was dismissed there, with Loeb & Co., also a shoe store in Barmbek, before becoming unemployed in 1936. On 26 Dec. 1934, she had given birth to a daughter whom she called Margarethe as well. It seems that her mother cared for the grandchild. Ida Hemmerdinger’s oldest daughter, Auguste, had had a job as a salaried employee with A. Frank & Co. since 1935, a business for women’s and children’s ready-to-wear clothing at Hamburger Strasse 85, which secured a modest income for her.

The first of Ida Hemmerdinger’s daughters to emigrate was the middle one, Erna, on 7 Feb. 1935. She had moved to Berlin before and then went to Lisbon from there.

In 1937, a ray of sunshine seemed to emerge in Ida Hemmerdinger’s life for a short time: From the inheritance of a brother who had emigrated to Chicago she received about 500 US dollars, but the sum was transferred directly to the Reichsbank in Berlin and withheld there, meaning she did not benefit from the inheritance.

In July 1939, Auguste emigrated to Great Britain, and that same year, her four-year-old niece Margarethe, the daughter of her sister Margarethe, also made it to Britain. After the start of the war, there was no more contact with her mother and sister in Hamburg. The small shared accommodation of Ida Hemmerdinger and her daughter Margarethe still in existence at Hasselbrookstrasse 68 ended. For two months, Ida Hemmerdinger moved in with Lina Lippmann, who also came from Baden and was widowed, at Saling 10 in Hamm (see Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Hamm) and afterward with the merchant D. Philip at Grindelhof 68. Margarethe lived as a subtenant with the widow Margarethe Michelson at Rothenbaumchaussee 99 and learned to cook in a Jewish guesthouse. Having acquired these skills, she had a number of jobs in Jewish households, before being enlisted to perform compulsory labor duties at a spinning mill in Wandsbek in 1940. In the fall of that year, mother and daughter moved in together again, living with Kurt Salomon at Rappstrasse 18. From one move to the other, the women sold parts of their household effects in order to cover their livelihood until there was nothing left to sell. From Jan. 1941 onward, Ida Hemmerdinger received welfare benefits and traveled to her hometown of Heilbronn in April, where she stayed with her siblings Berta, widow of the late Mr. Sternfeld, and Otto until her return to Hamburg on 18 Nov. 1941. Otto Igersheimer had already been driven out of his position as director of the "Heilbronner Bankverein” banking house by the new rulers and a mob in Apr. 1933, after which time he became active in the Jewish Community as a community welfare worker. Both siblings were murdered in Auschwitz in 1943.

With her occupation indicated as spinning mill worker, Margarethe Hemmerdinger was called up for transport to Riga on 4 Dec. 1941. She was 36 years old and thus suitable for participating in the supposed "Development in the East” ("Aufbau im Osten”). Her mother Ida, 69 years old, without any occupation, was not considered for this anymore but she volunteered for the "evacuation” together with her daughter. The transport, comprised of 753 persons, left Hamburg on 6 Dec. 1941. There have not been any traces of the two women since then.

Translator: Erwin Fink

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2016
© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 6; 9; StaH 314-15 OFP Oberfinanzpräsident – Devisenstelle, Abl. 1998, H 792, FVg 5133; 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung 1760, 30116; 552-1 Jüdische Gemeinden, 992 e 2 Band 3 Deportationslisten; Stadtarchiv Heilbronn, B 11-79.
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