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Erna Martinelly (née Gottschalk) * 1902

Bürgerweide 51 (Hamburg-Mitte, Borgfelde)

HIER WOHNTE
ERNA MARTINELLY
GEB. GOTTSCHALK
JG. 1902
GEDEMÜTIGT / ENTRECHTET
FLUCHT IN DEN TOD
17.2.1945

Erna Martinelly, née Gottschalk, born on 28 Aug. 1902 in Hamburg, suicide on 17 Feb. 1945

Bürgerweide 51

"On 14 Feb. [1945] between 9 and 10 a.m., I left the apartment to confer at the military registration office 5 [Wehrmeldeamt 5] on the matter of my call-up. My wife stayed behind in the apartment. She only mentioned wishing to have a short nap because she was tired from all the packing in preparation for her imminent [forced] labor duty on 14 February at 2 p.m. Returning to the apartment between 12 and 1 p.m., I found my wife lying on the bed, fully dressed, in a state of unconsciousness. Immediately, I informed the police station in charge and asked for her transfer to hospital. The transport was carried out on 14 Feb. at around 2 p.m.” This is how Hans Martinelly described his wife Erna’s suicide attempt to staff at the police station. She was admitted to the Israelite Hospital, then located at Schäferkampsallee 29. She died there on 17 Feb. 1945. Her body was examined at the Forensic Institute (Gerichtsmedizinisches Institut) of the University of Hamburg on Neue Rabenstrasse, where the cause of death was determined to be pneumonia as a result of sleep-inducing medication.

Erna Gottschalk’s parents, the plumber Paul Gottschalk, born on 26 June 1871 in Aken/Elbe, and his wife Ida, née Holland, born on 1 Oct. 1878 in Rappenau, moved from Basel to Hamburg around 1900. Still in Basel, their son Julius was born on 3 Nov. 1899, while their daughter Erna was already born in Hamburg on 28 Aug. 1902. Paul Gottschalk came from a large family. His father, the photographer and merchant Levy Gottschalk, had eight children from his first marriage with the Jewish woman Pauline Gottschalk and from a second marriage with a Protestant woman seven children, several of whom moved to Hamburg.

Nothing is known about the childhood and youth of Julius and Erna Gottschalk, except that they lived at Stuvkamp 9 in Barmbek. Erna became a kindergarten teacher. Like her brother, she entered into a so-called mixed marriage (Mischehe). Julius married Martha Jacobi and had himself baptized on 25 Oct. 1931; Erna married Hans Martinelly, a master electrician born on 12 July 1895 in Rendsburg, on 5 Sept. 1931. He lived with his father, the confectioner Wilhelm Martinelly, at Bürgerweide 71. Both of their marriages remained childless. Hans Martinelly had started his own business as a plumber and electrician in 1926. After getting married, his wife served as an office employee taking on all commercial work that came up, including accounting. They moved to Bürgerweide, initially to building no. 64, then, in 1933, to no. 51, while Wilhelm Martinelly continued to reside at no. 71.

In 1935, the mother, Ida Gottschalk, passed away. A widower, Paul Gottschalk moved in with his daughter, who lived at Bürgerweide 51. On 30 Apr. 1938, he left the Hamburg German-Israelitic Community. A few months later, on 13 Aug. 1938, he passed away in the "Psychiatric and Mental Hospital of the Hansische University” ("Psychiatrische und Nervenklinik der Hansischen Universität”) at Friedrichsberger Strasse 60, as a result of a stroke. Erna Martinelly did not join the Jewish Community even in 1939, when she would have been obliged to do so, and until 11 Sept. 1941, she avoided the entry of the compulsory name of "Sara” into the marriage register. However, the German Labor Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront – DAF) and the Gestapo treated her as a Jewish woman. She was banned from any direct contact to customers and her husband from training any more apprentices. Hans Martinelly resisted pressure by the Gestapo to divorce his wife, putting up with all disadvantages that arose from this.

In the fall of 1941, when the transports toward the "Development in the East” ("Aufbau im Osten”) began, her widowed uncle, Otto Gottschalk, though already 65 years old, was deported to Riga on 6 Dec. 1941. Julius Gottschalk and Erna Martinelly, although younger and living in "non-privileged marriages,” were spared. Their uncle Karl, who had remained in Aken, was deported along with his wife Ida, who was unable to walk, and his niece, from Magdeburg to Theresienstadt in 1942; the same happened to two additional cousins of Erna Gottschalk from Berlin and Hamburg, respectively, all of whom died before the end of 1943.

On 10 Oct. 1942, Erna Martinelly was enlisted to perform forced labor at the Buchholtz Pyrotechnical Plant in Bahrenfeld. This was followed by work duties at the Heldmann Chemical Plant, as a packer with the Karl Laufenberg Company at Herrengraben, and as a seamstress with the Otto Schulz Company on Dammtorstrasse. Following the first large-scale air raid on Hamburg on 24/25 July 1942, she left the city for a few days, traveling to Rendsburg to see relatives residing there. After her return on 29 July, she continued her work, though the city was largely destroyed, with her apartment affected as well. She and her husband found new accommodation on Marktstrasse in St. Pauli. On 27 Oct. 1944, Hans Martinelly was also called up for forced labor, being deployed to clear rubble and do excavation work.

Erna Martinelly’s work with the Otto Schulz Company ended on 9 Feb. 1945 with the order by the Gestapo to prepare for another work duty, this time in Theresienstadt. In Feb. 1945, the Gestapo called up more than 200 Jewish partners in "mixed marriages” ("Mischehen”) for such special labor duties. Most of them performed compulsory labor in Hamburg, and many of them were examined by the medical health officer before their work duty. Others, who submitted certificates from their family doctors, were deferred from labor for medical reasons. Why Erna Martinelly did not choose this path as well is not known. Erna Martinelly may have taken the sleeping pills on 14 Feb. 1945 with her experiences during forced labor and the fate of her relatives perished in Theresienstadt in mind. She was small in build and of medium strength, suffering from a heart condition and nervousness. Toward her husband, she had expressed reservations about the labor duty but no suicidal intentions. She died at the age of 42. Of the 194 persons transported on 14 Feb. 1945 from Hamburg to the Theresienstadt Ghetto, which was already in a state of dissolution, 190 survived.


Translator: Erwin Fink

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2017
© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: Gedenkbuch Hamburger jüdische Opfer des Nationalsozialismus; Online-Ausgabe des Gedenkbuchs des Bundesarchivs für jüdische Opfer des Nationalsozialismus; diverse Hamburger Adressbücher; StaH, 331-5 Polizeibehörde – Unnatürliche Todesfälle 1945/224; 332-5 Standesämter, 7210+692/1938, 8197+172/1945, 13513+481/1931; 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung, 17417, 26684; 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden, Abl. 1993, 10 (wg. Arbeitseinsatz 1945); Brunswig, Hans, Feuersturm über Hamburg, Stuttgart, 8. Aufl. 1987.
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