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Anna Loewy
© StaH

Anna Loewy * 1859

Hasselbrookstraße 6 (Wandsbek, Eilbek)

HIER WOHNTE
ANNA LOEWY
JG. 1859
DEPORTIERT 1943
THERESIENSTADT
ERMORDET 31.5.1944

Anna Loewy, born on 30 Nov. 1859 in Hamburg, deported on 23 June 1943 to Theresienstadt, died there on 31 May 1944

Hasselbrookstrasse 6

Hanna Glinzer, the last principal of the Paulsenstift School, complemented Anna Loewy’s personnel file with a continuation of her biography, before handing over the archive of her school to the Hamburg State Archive in 1953: "Expelled from her apartment, then from the guesthouse where she had moved, then from the Jewish orphanage at Laufgraben, and robbed of everything. In early July 1943 deported by the Gestapo to Theresienstadt, where she died a natural death in the fall, at the age of 83. She wrote a postcard in August [1943]. One of the best!”

Among a teaching staff numbering 26, Anna Loewy was the only permanently employed Jewish teacher at the school. In her curriculum vitae, she wrote herself, "I was born in Hamburg in Nov. 1859 [30 Nov. 1859]. From age 7 to age 12, I attended the school operated by Mrs. Schrader on Kleine Bäckerstrasse. When this woman and her sisters gave up their teaching careers, I was enrolled in the school of Miss Mantels on Strohhause in St. Georg. I stayed there for only one year, for when the teaching facilities of the St. Johannis convent were established in the spring of 1872, I joined the third grade [translator’s note: of secondary school] there. I finished my schooldays there and then prepared [since 1 Apr. 1876] for the teaching profession in the seminar of the same educational institute. After passing the exam [2 Apr. 1879], I taught for one year at the school of Mr. Möhrcker [G.H.C Möhrcker, at Schultzweg 33] on Schulzweg in St. Georg, and then, for a short time, at the school of Miss Becks [secondary girls’ school, Bertha Becks, at Hofweg 7] on Hofweg in Uhlenhorst. For health reasons, I subsequently had to take a resting period for a year, after which I received a position at the school of the Paulsenstift, in which I have been working since the fall of 1881.” In 1881, the Paulsenstift was still located at Pumpen 38 in Hamburg-Altstadt, where this charitable foundation had been established by Anna Wohlwill on 3 Nov. 1866. Anna Loewy participated in the move to Bülaustrasse 20 in St. Georg in 1893 and experienced as an active member of the teaching staff the change of principals from Anna Wohlwill to Hanna Glinzer in 1910. When the Paulsenstift School was turned into a state school on 1 Apr. 1937, Anna Loewy had been in retirement for 12 years.

Anna Loewy had taken exams on educational theory, teaching proficiency, German, French, English, arithmetic, description of nature, physical science, history, geography, writing, drawing, voice, and needlework, obtaining a grade of "good” and "satisfactory” for each half of the subjects, respectively, with only four marking levels attainable overall. Employed as a homeroom teacher in grades 5 and 6, she mainly taught German and needlework. On the occasions of Anna Loewy’s 25th and 40th work anniversaries, her students and colleagues sang the praises of her education toward "economizing, orderliness, and punctuality” in varied and witty ways. In this connection, they referred to orderliness both in needlework and in thinking, praising her personal modesty, thrift, helpfulness, magnanimity, her incorruptibility, cheerfulness, fairness, patience, and thoroughness.

Anna Loewy and her sister Bertha, born on 16 Mar. 1863, were born into an academic family. The father, Meyer Hirsch Loewy, born in 1825, worked as an editor and passed away around 1872, when the daughters were still attending school. It is not known how the mother, Rosa Loewy, née Friedmann, born in 1827 in Breslau, made ends meet for her daughters and herself. After her husband’s death, she moved from Hamburg-Neustadt to the St. Georg district. Both daughters became teachers with permanent positions at semi-public girls’ schools, Anna at Paulsenstift and Bertha at the girls’ school of the German-Israelitic Community on Carolinenstrasse. The sisters had themselves registered simultaneously with the Jewish Community in 1916.

After the death of their mother in 1888, Anna and Bertha Loewy initially moved to Hamburg-Neustadt again, subsequently changing addresses several times, before renting a shared apartment at Hasselbrookstrasse 6 in 1911. For their entire lives, they went their separate ways only when external circumstances forced them to do so. Anna was always very homesick whenever she could not be with her sister. Her state of health required additional spa stays even after the resting period of 1880. In 1898, she was granted a 14-day leave of absence for health reasons just prior to the summer holidays. In 1914, she spent a convalescent leave in Hohe Mark near Frankfurt/Main and another one in 1924 on Wilhelmshöhe in Blankenese. She regretted the burden her absence caused for the school. In a greeting card from Blankenese to her principal, she confessed to her just how difficult bidding farewell to her students and colleagues was at Easter of 1925. At the age of 65, she was retired as the statutory pension scheme stipulated. It is impossible to reconstruct how she and her sister lived in the following years. Bertha died of a stroke at the Catholic Marienkrankenhaus Hospital in Hohenfelde on 3 Dec. 1938. Anna Loewy had her sister buried in a double grave in the Jewish Cemetery on Ilandkoppel in Ohlsdorf, assuming that she would be interred next to her.

Anna remained behind in their apartment by herself, supported by a domestic help who was with her day and night and received 30 RM (reichsmark) in return in addition to full room and board. Anna pointed out this financial strain to the Jewish Community on 15 July 1940 in order to obtain a tax reduction. Her application was rejected. Possibly, she sold household effects in order to be able to meet her financial obligations.

In Apr. 1941, Anna Loewy moved to the Lange guesthouse at Ostmarkstrasse 42 (today: Hallerstrasse). Her landlady, Ella Lange, née Goldschmidt, was deported to Riga as early as 6 Dec. 1941. The Jewish Community arranged for Anna Loewy’s admission to its nursing home in the former orphanage at Laufgraben 37. The rest of her furniture, together with that of her landlady and other occupants, was put up for auctioning. Anna Loewy’s pension sufficed to cover the nursing fees. When the Jewish Community was forced to give up the nursing home on Laufgraben in 1942, it quartered Anna Loewy in the building at Beneckestrasse 6, then furnished as a nursing home. Her remaining assets were used for the "home purchase contract” ("Heimeinkaufsvertrag”) into the "retirement home in Theresienstadt.” Despite a medical certificate dated 2 May 1943 that certified her as suffering from extreme debility of old age and having had two strokes not completely cured, as well as cardiovascular disease and incontinence, she was deported to the "ghetto for the elderly” ("Altersgetto”) in Theresienstadt. She lived there for almost a year, before dying on 31 May 1944, at the age of 83.

"May heaven reward you for your work,
May it bless you forever!
And that you may still experience much joy,
Those are the warm wishes by your crowd of children.”

When Anna Loewy’s female students gave her these wishes for her journey at her 40th work anniversary, no one could imagine what that journey would look like one day or where it would end.


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

Stand: March 2017
© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: 1, 4, 5, 7, 9; AB; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 7207-1319/1938, 362-6/11; 552-1 Jüdische Gemeinden 992 d Bd. 21 Steuerakten, 992 n Fürsorgeakten der Jüdischen Gemeinden Bd. 21; Verzeichnis der Hamburger Volksschullehrer und -lehrerinnen 1896–1915; Hamburgisches Lehrerverzeichnis 1920–1939.
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