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Auguste Schumacher (née Braunschweiger) * 1875

Richardstraße 1 vor Schule (vormals Nr. 11) (Hamburg-Nord, Barmbek-Süd)

HIER WOHNTE
AUGUSTE SCHUMACHER
JG. 1875
DEPORTIERT 1941
LODZ
ERMORDET 6.7.1944

further stumbling stones in Richardstraße 1 vor Schule (vormals Nr. 11):
Isaak Schumacher

Isaak (Iwan) Schumacher, born 9/28/1875, deported to Lodz on 10/25/1941, date of death 1/12/1943
Auguste (Agnes) Schumacher, née Lichtenstein, adopted Braunschweiger, born 8/13/1875, deported to Lodz on 10/25/1941, date of death 7/6/1944

Richardstrasse 11

Isaak Schumacher, called Iwan, was born in Libau, a town in Latvia. His Jewish parents were Jacob Isaac Schumacher, born July 20th, 1838 in Libau, a merchant by trade, and his wife Johanna (Hannchen), born June 26th, 1851 in Altona, daughter of Hermann Lewandowski, cantor and diament of the Israelitic Community. After their marriage ceremony performed b y a Rabbi of the German-Israelitic Community in Hamburg, the Schumachers moved to Libau. Jacob Isaac Schumacher died a few years later, and his little son was taken on by his grandparents, the Lewandowskis in Altona. Where he grew up and attended school. At the elite Christianeum high school, he met Moses Goldschmidt, who in his memoirs was to write about a lifelong friendship.

Auguste Schumacher, called Agnes, was born in Altona on August 13th, 1875. Her parents Abraham Lichtenstein and Marianne, née Braunschweiger, were also Jewish. In 1897, she was adopted by the merchant Moses Braunschweiger and took his family name. She and Iwan Schumacher were the same age and knew each other long before they married in 1907. The couple had no children. We know from Moses Goldschmidt’s memoirs that Iwan and Agnes were the couple’s forenames.

Moses Goldschmidt and Iwan Schumacher, two years Moses’ junior, attended the Christianeum from Easter, 1894 and, having had to repeat classes, graduated in 1894. They were the only Jewish pupils in their class, and neither of them was particularly interested in the humanistic disciplines Latin and ancient Greek. However, they had good grades in mathematics and physics, and in their senior year, both decided to study medicine. The medical school in Würzburg was Moses’ first choice; Iwan initially enrolled in Heidelberg, but after his first semester joined his best friend in Würzburg.

According to Moses Goldschmidt, they had a great time in the capital of Franconia, belonged to a dueling student corporation called Wirceburgia and established close ties to other members of the corporation, called Bundesbrüder – "union brethren.” Many of these Würzburg students later worked at hospitals in Hamburg or established their own practices in the town. Goldschmidt mentions the names Heinrich Katz, Oettinger, Cramer, Jacoby, Julius Jolowicz, Georg Manes and Richard Lewinsohn. We learn a lot about the compulsory fencing practiced in the corporation and the Mensur, a duel Iwan Schumacher had to face that marked him for life with a Schmiss, a scar resulting from a deep cut running from his ear across the cheek all the way down to the corner of his mouth. Iwan’s doctor’s thesis, published 1898 in Würzburg and available at the State Archive in Berlin, is titled Über verästelte Knochenbildung in der Lunge ("About the Ramified Formation of Bone in the Lung”).

After graduation, the friends continued their medical training in northern Germany; ill-paid jobs in hospitals and various temporary positions followed. In 1907, Moses Goldschmidt, who had a family and a practice with lots of patients in St. Georg, met his beaming friend Iwan Schumacher, who had just received his accreditation with the statutory health insurance and wanted to open a practice in Hamburg-Barmbek. Finally, he would be able to provide a secure future for his longtime fiancée Agnes and marry her. The practice was initially located at Barmbeker Markt; later, Schumacher found new premises for his home and practice on the second floor of Richardstrasse 11, easily accessible for patients from the low-income working-class neighborhood north of Hamburger Strasse as well as for the financially stronger clientele to the south of Hamburger Strasse, then a popular shopping and entertainment boulevard. The Schumachers lived at that address until their forced "resettlement.”

In World War I, Iwan Schuhmacher served in the infantry. His income is documented for 1916 and 1917, when he made 6,000 RM a year. After the war and the subsequent inflation, his income slowly increased.

Goldschmidt’s memoirs report an accident his friend had in 1923: the "Hamburg insurgency” with its heavy fighting between Communists and the police in the streets of Barmbek was just over, rolls of barbed wire still lay on the sidewalk, waiting for the police to remove them. Dr. Schuhmacher, on his way home from a late-evening house call, tripped over some barbed wire on the dark sidewalk and severely fractured his elbow. That fall caused a permanent handicap, but Schumacher continued his medical practice as long as the Nazi regime allowed. We know nothing about the everyday private life of the Schumachers.

In 1938, Jewish physicians were first deprived of their accreditation with the statutory and then their approbation. Many of Schumacher’s Jewish colleagues had already left Germany or were preparing their emigration. In April 1939, the Chief Finance Administrator issued a "security order” against Dr. Schumacher’s complete assets. The customs investigation bureau wrote the currency office of the Chief Finance Administration that suspected attempt of capital flight was based "on the fact that Schumacher is a Jew and intends to emigrate. "It must be prevented that currency be abducted in violation or by circumvention of the applicable regulations.”

Besides the addressee, this order was served to the Commerz- und Privatbank Hamburg, who kept Schumacher’s account and administered his assets, and also the Depositenkasse Barmbek, where he had a further account, and the Iduna-Germania life insurance company, where he held a policy. Iwan Schumacher was ordered to report his assets to the commercial police; it amounted to 121,985.84 RM plus life insurance and other valuables, e.g. oil paintings, carpets, jewelry and silverware, which were assessed at 4,000 RM. By registered letter, he was informed that, pursuant to Art. 59 of the currency tax law of December 12th, 1938, he was only allowed to dispose of his now blocked account with express permission from the currency office. He was allowed to withdraw 800 RM per month plus payments of public levies and taxes, including the levy on Jewish assets. Violations could be punished by a fine or jail sentence, in severe cases prison plus fine. Reason: "Herr Dr. I. Schumacher is a Jew. Considering our recent experiences with Jews, it is necessary to only allow them to dispose of their assets with permission of the currency office.”

Maybe Iwan Schumacher filed an appeal; in the letter of the Chief Finance Administrator confirming the security order, it says "Complaints and appeals are to be addressed to the Reich Minister of Economics, Berlin. They are to be submitted to me in two copies.” The Commerzbank informed the customs investigation department of the balance of the account and deposited securities, the Iduna life insurance asked the Chief Finance Administrator if the security order also applied to Schumacher’s wife, who would be the beneficiary in the case of death before maturity. The reply was an amendment to the order: "I order with immediate effect that Frau Schumacher as beneficiary … max only dispose with my permission.”

Im September 1939, Iwan Schumacher had to complete a questionnaire about his running costs for re-assessment of the monthly amount available to him: rent 180 RM, means of subsistence 250 RM, domestic help 80 RM, contribution to Erna Lewandowski at the Jewish infirmary in Altona 10 RM, miscellaneous 250 RM = 800 RM. This is an indication that there was an elderly relative on his mother’s side. In the security order of October 20th, 1939, the previous allowance of 800 RM per month was reduced to 600 RM.

The orders from the Chief Finance Administration, currency office, were still addressed to Richardstrasse 11. The Schumachers could stay there because the mortgages on the property were held by the bank of the charitable foundations of the Jewish Religious Association, so that the abolition of rent control for Jews in 1939 did not have the usual effect here. In 1943, the house was among the properties confiscated by the Gestapo. However, they didn’t enjoy it for long. In the night from July 29th to 30th, number 11 and the neighboring houses were completely destroyed by the bombs of the allied "Operation Gomorra.”

Moses Goldschmidt had been in exile in Brazil since 1939. Under adverse circumstances, he had succeeded in joining his sons already in exile there. Moses’ daughter had married a British citizen in France and was thus protected; his wife had died a few years earlier, his best friend Iwan had given the eulogy. His earned assets exhausted or confiscated, nearly penniless and of ailing health, he lived with one of his sons and sensed he didn’t have much time left – he had had heart trouble for a long time. In 1941, he started writing his memoirs. Goldschmidt worried about his friends in Hamburg who had no relatives abroad who might help them get a visa.

When he started writing, Agnes and Auguste Schumacher, from whom he had no news, were possibly already gone – the deportation order reached them in fall. The first deportation transport of Hamburg Jews left the city on October 25th, 1941. Their last journey started in the Moorweide, a park across the street from Dammtor station, and ended in the ghetto of Lodz in Poland. Three days before departure, the Gestapo ordered the Dammtor Finance Office to dispose of the belongings they had confiscated. Isaak Iwan Schumacher and his wife Auguste were among the deported. Bothe were 66 years old and thus among the 30 persons over 65, who, against the "guidelines”, were "resettled” on this transport.

Iwan Schumacher died on January 12th, 1943 in the Lodz ghetto. A file entry gives "malnutrition” as cause of death. Last reports say that he had cared for other prisoners as camp physician had tried to alleviate their situation, e.g. by pleading for improvements of the disastrous accommodation situation or by attestations intending to save his patients from "departure.” This, however, mostly was of no avail, because the resettlement committee’s job was precisely to remove those people who were not engaged in producing goods. In most cases, the attestation "not fit for transport” caused the committee to note przewoz, i.e. "transport by wagon.” Auguste Agnes Schumacher followed her husband Iwan a year later, on July 6th, 1944. The circumstances of her death are unknown.

Moses Goldschmidt died of a heart attack in 1943. Decades later, his manuscript reached his granddaughter in England, whose Raymond Fromm edited and published them in 2004.


Translation by Peter Hubschmid 2018
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: January 2019
© Erika Draeger

Quellen: 1; 2; 5; 8; StaHH 314-15, OFP, R 1939/2318; StaHH 314-15, OFP, St Ic 1424; USHMM, RG 15.083 299/77, 719, 720; 300/701-702, 891; 302/351, 611, 662; Meyer: Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der Hamburger Juden, S. 29, S. 43, S. 48, S. 206; von Villiez: Mit aller Kraft verdrängt., S. 279, S. 396; Goldschmidt/ Fromm: Mein Leben als Jude in Deutschland, S. 59, S. 70, S. 96, S. 109, S. 153; USHMM, RG 15.083 299/77, 719, 720; 300/701-702, 891; 302/351, 611, 662; Brunswig: Feuersturm über Hamburg, S. 248ff.; Humanistisches Gymnasium Christianeum in Hamburg, Archiv der Schulbibliothek; Staatsbibliothek Berlin online: http://stabikat.de/DB=1/SET=6/TTL=1/CMD?ACT=SRCHA&IKT=1016&SRT= LST_aty&TRM=iwan+schumacher, Zugriff am 11.12.2009.
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