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Isaak Wertheimer * 1898

Rutschbahn 3 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

HIER WOHNTE
ISAAK WERTHEIMER
JG. 1898
FLUCHT 1937 HOLLAND
DEPORTIERT 1943
AUSCHWITZ
ERMORDET

further stumbling stones in Rutschbahn 3:
Ruth Wertheimer, Marion Wertheimer, Heinz Wertheimer

Isaak Wertheimer, b. 10.11.1898 in Hardheim/Baden, deported from the Netherlands to Auschwitz on 9.7.1943, murdered there on 3.13.1944
Rutschbahn 3

Isaak was the youngest son of Emanuel Wertheimer and his second wife Marianne, née Bachmann. The boy grew up without his mother since she died before his third birthday. His father died on 3 October 1926. From his father’s first marriage to Ida Wertheimer, née Lengfeld, who died in 1890, Isaak had two half-brothers and a half-sister. Naftalie died in 1901 after a brief but severe illness.

Isaak came to Hamburg for the first time in 1925. He worked as a sales representative and withdrew from the Jewish Congregation of the Hanseatic City as of October 1925. He moved around the city often and left after only half a year to return to Karlsruhe. In 1930, he came back to Hamburg and in May 1930 again joined the Jewish Congregation. On 1 September 1931, he registered his own window-cleaning institute under the name of "Clean Quick as a Flash.” He ran it from his apartment at Rutschbahn 3 where he was a sub-lessee with Oppenheim; he also hired a co-worker.

After initial difficulties and financial problems, the business seemed to receive a boost, especially after his wedding to Ruth Cohen on 12 August 1932. He was able to extend and expand his circle of clients and worked for big-name concerns, among them, the Jewish Congregation and its great synagogue on Bornplatz. In addition, he also had the Karstadt and Tietz (from 1935, the Alsterhaus) department stores, as well as the Brothers Hirschfeld and Brothers Robinsohn, both located at the Neuen Wall, and the Warburg Banking House. Given these favorable business situations, Isaak Wertheimer was able to hire one or two additional workers.

Nevertheless, he paid a minimal Religion Communal tax. A year after his wedding to Ruth, their first child was born, a daughter, Marion (see her biographical entry). On 14 February 1935, the young family, expecting a second child, moved to a larger apartment within the city at Bornstrasse 26. On 9 July, their son Heinz-Emanuel (see his biographical entry) was born. A year later, on 2 July 1936, the family moved again, this time to Rothenbaumchaussee 101–103.

With the escalation of political life, especially after the issuing of the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, life changed radically for the Wertheimers. Isaak’s business suffered losses. That is why he decided at the end of 1936 to leave the Reich and emigrate to the Netherlands. From 10 December he was registered in Amsterdam.

After he had taken care of lodging and work – at first as an iron salesman – his wife and children came to Amsterdam in February 1937.

After initial difficulties and several moves, the family lived from November 1938 at Nieuwe Prinsengracht 114 in Amsterdam. Shortly thereafter, Isaak again took up his work as a window cleaner. From 1942, he worked with the Jewish Old Peoples’ Home [Joodse Invalide] in Amsterdam. This was a combination nursing home and hospital where disabled and/or elderly Jews were taken in and cared for. The home was emptied by the Nazis on 1 March 1943; all the patients and staff were deported. Isaak was the exception and continued working publicly at the Home.

He also avoided arrest a second time when, in May 1943, Ruth, Marion, and Heinz-Emanuel were imprisoned in Westerbork concentration camp. They were probably taken in the context of a surprise raid in Amsterdam, which occurred one day before their incarceration in the camp. Approximately 3000 Jews were arrested and imprisoned.

To be sure, his wife and both children were released two months later, but the joy of regained freedom did not last long. Just one week later, on 24 July, the entire Wertheimer family was taken to Westerbork. Originally a refugee camp for German Jews, it was repurposed after the invasion of the German armed forces into a concentration and transit camp, from which transports left for the extermination centers in the East. Thus Isaak and his family did not remain long in the camp; rather, on 7 September, they were deported to Auschwitz. The transport arrived at the extermination camp three days later. While Ruth, Marion, and Heinz-Emanuel were probably murdered on the same day, Isaak was selected as an inmate and set to forced labor. Presumably, as a result of this, he died on 31 March 1944 at 45 years of age.

Documentation of his murder and that of his wife and children have not survived. Thus, Isaak was declared to have died later, on 31 December 1945.

Isaak had three older sisters, Berta, Helene, and Dina, as well as a younger sister named Ida. They all fell victim to the Holocaust. Helene and Ida, as well as their brother, lost their lives in Auschwitz. In addition, Isaak had two older brothers. Anselm had already fallen in 1918, as a soldier on the Western Front. His other brother, Willy, with whom he was always close, was able to survive because he emigrated to the USA. He lived in New York City.

Isaak‘s half-brothers from his father’s first marriage, Felix and Julius, also were lost in the Holocaust; they died in Sobibor and Riga.


Translator: Richard Levy
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: May 2019
© Anna-Katharina Kresin

Quellen: StaHH, 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung, 20789 Isak Wertheimer; StaHH, 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden, 992b, Kultussteuerkartei der Deutsch-Israelitischen Gemeinde Hamburg, Kultussteuerkarte Isak Wertheimer; StaHH, 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung, 38501 Ruth Wertheimer; www.bundesarchiv.de/gedenkbuch (Zugriff 29.07.2014); Meyer, Beate (Hg.): Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der Hamburger Juden 1933–1945. Geschichte. Zeugnis. Erinnerung. Hamburg 2007, S. 19–22.; www.joodsmonument.nl (Zugriff 29.07.2014); Stadsarchief Amsterdam, A64-24 Wertheimer, Isak; www.annefrank.org/de/Subsites/Zeitleiste (Zugriff 29.07.2014); Gutman, Israel (Hg.): Enzyklopädie des Holocaust. Band 3: Q–Z. München 1998.