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Jenny Heinemann (née Berna) * 1866

Ackermannstraße 17 (Hamburg-Nord, Hohenfelde)

HIER WOHNTE
JENNY HEINEMANN
GEB. BERNA
JG. 1866
FLUCHT 1939
HOLLAND
INTERNIERT WESTERBORK
DEPORTIERT 1943
ERMORDET IN
AUSCHWITZ

Jenny Heinemann, née Berna, born on 2 Jan. 1866 in Burgsteinfurt, on 16 Jan. 1939 flight to the Netherlands, committed on 19 Jan. 1943 to the Westerbork "transit camp," deported on 29 Jan. 1943 to the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp, murdered there

Ackermannstrasse 17

"I, the undersigned, Jenny Sara Heinemann, née Berna, born on 2 Jan. 1866 in Burgsteinfurt, will shortly emigrate to Holland to join my sisters. For this purpose, I have enclosed the list of my moving goods in triplicate, and note that most of them are only personal items that were purchased a very long time ago. ... I humbly point out that I have not acquired anything new in connection with emigration.” [Underlining in the original]

On 18 Jan. 1938, Jenny Heinemann addressed this letter to the foreign currency office of the Hamburg Chief Finance Administrator (Oberfinanzpräsident). It took another year, however, before she actually emigrated. And even this did not afford her the security she had expected.

Jenny Berna was born on 2 Jan. 1866, the second daughter of Moritz Berna and Friederike, née Schoenbach, in Burgsteinfurt in Westphalia. Her older sister’s name was Sophie, born on 28 May 1861; her younger sister was Rosalie, born on 19 Apr. 1867. Both sisters married Dutchmen by the name of de Beer and moved to Amsterdam. Jenny Berna married Meier Heinemann, born on 17 Sept. 1862 in Mansbach/East Hessen, in Kassel on 15 May 1893. Together with his parents, he had moved from his native town to Kassel only the year before his marriage. He worked as a merchant like his father Süssmann Heinemann.

Jenny and Meier Heinemann first moved into a rented apartment at Sedanstrasse 22 in Kassel, where their first child, Ludwig, was born on 19 June 1894. The following two children, Else and Martha, died in the first year of their lives. Even before the turn of the century, Jenny and Meier Heinemann changed apartments twice and when their fourth child, Helene Hertha, was born on 18 July 1902, they lived at Schillerstrasse 23, where their youngest daughter Sophie Charlotte, called Lotte, was born as well on 25 Dec. 1908. Jenny Heinemann was 42 years old at the time.

The oldest, Ludwig Heinemann, attended the Realgymnasium [a high school focused on science, math, and modern languages] in Kassel and obtained his high school graduation diploma (Abitur) there. Immediately afterward, he enlisted with the army as a war volunteer and took part in the First World War as a frontline soldier until 11 Nov. 1918. After his demobilization, he first studied mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Hannover and then switched to the Technical University of Munich. On 7 Aug. 1923, he obtained his engineering degree there. He then returned temporarily to Kassel and gave notice to the authorities of moving to Hamburg in 1924. There he took a well-paid position at Mathias Stinnes, Feuerungs- und Wärmetechnik, a furnace and heat technology company, in 1926 and the following year, he married the pharmacist’s daughter Hertha Sophie Bukofzer, born on 1 Dec. 1899 in Hamburg. Her father Oscar had already passed away in 1917. Heinemann’s parents came from Kassel for the wedding.

Hertha Sophie Bukofzer had studied pharmacy like her brother Werner and worked together with him in the parents’ pharmacy at Schlachterstrasse 27/28 in Hamburg-Neustadt. She brought a monthly pension of 200 RM (reichsmark) into the marriage as a dowry, payable as long as her mother lived. The German-Israelitic Community noted that although a student, she paid voluntary contributions. Following her marriage – in a civil ceremony on 8 Aug. 1927, and one day later at the Rabbinate of the Israelite Temple Association (Israelitischer Tempelverband) – she retired as an independent taxable member of the Community. On 23 Aug. 1929, she and Ludwig Heinemann had a daughter, Ellen Johanna – Jenny and Meier Heinemann’s first grandchild. In 1931, Ludwig started his own business, Dipl. Ing. Ludwig Heinemann, Industrie und Hausbrandkohlen, Feuerungstechnische Beratung, a company specializing in industrial and domestic coal as well as consultation on heating technology. He had it entered in the company register on 4 Mar. 1931 and obtained admission to trade on the stock exchange. The solid middle-class residence at Ackermannstrasse 17 also served as company headquarters.

Jenny and Meier Heinemann’s oldest daughter Hertha for her part married Ludwig Louis Goldschmidt, 17 years her senior, from Hamburg on 25 Feb. 1931 in Kassel and deregistered for Hamburg on 1 Apr. 1931. Before the end of the year, she travelled with her husband to Luanda in Angola, where he represented major German companies. In Luanda, their son Richard was born on the last day of the year 1932.

Meier Heinemann died in Kassel on 8 Mar. 1932. Four weeks later, Jenny Heinemann, along with her youngest daughter Charlotte, moved in with her son Ludwig and his family to the apartment on Ackermannstrasse in Hamburg.

In 1934, daughter Hertha went together with her son Richard from Luanda to Hamburg to stay on Ackermannstrasse. She sought the help of her mother when her second child was born. On 18 July 1934, Hans-Heinrich Goldschmidt was born in the Israelite Hospital. In Feb. 1935, Jenny’s son-in-law Ludwig Goldschmidt arrived in Hamburg, and in Oct. 1935, the whole family returned to Luanda. Jenny Heinemann never met her third grandchild, Gaby Nanette, because she was born in Swakopmund (Namibia). Jenny’s youngest daughter, Sophie Charlotte, was also drawn to Africa. She followed her sister to Luanda in 1936 and lived in Cassumba/Angola, married to a Mr. Breitenfeld.

In 1933, power was transferred to the Nazis. Three years later, Ludwig Heinemann closed his company. His brother-in-law, Werner Bukofzer, on the other hand, had to surrender the Löwenapotheke, a pharmacy, to a non-Jewish leaseholder. In 1937, he, his wife Hertha, and their seven-year-old daughter emigrated to Johannesburg together with Hertha’s 64-year-old mother Gertrud Bukofzer. In the same year, he was deprived of his long-standing company representations.

Jenny Heinemann did not join them. Only when the brother of her daughter-in-law, Werner Bukofzer, and thus all of her relatives had left Germany, did she try to move to her sisters in Amsterdam in 1938. By that time, they lived in a shared household. When the process was delayed, she moved out of her apartment on Isestrasse, first to a furnished apartment at Brahmsallee 62 with Edgar Haas, then to Grindelallee 136 with Hermann Elkeles, and on 1 Feb. 1939 to Lenhartzstrasse 1 with Meyer for just a few days. Accordingly, no furniture, only household items and clothing appear on her list of household goods. A handheld stitching machine and "1 bag with patches,” a loudspeaker plus detector (a kind of simple radio), bridge utensils, opera glasses and a series of prayer books were out of the ordinary. For the journey by train, she needed a suitcase, which she bought from Ernst Klockmann in Jan. 1939. Since it was considered a new acquisition for emigration, the Chief Finance Administrator demanded that she pay a duty to the Gold Discount Bank ("Dego-Abgabe”) amounting to the acquisition value of 54 RM. Her claim that it was a gift from her sisters did not change the payment obligation. Only two days later, after having made the transfer to Deutsche Golddiskontobank in Berlin on 7 February, was she able to leave Hamburg for Amsterdam to move in with her sisters Rosalie and Sophie. Effective 18 Feb. 1939, her passport was invalidated.

Like all Jews in the Netherlands, Jenny Heinemann had to wear the "yellow star” starting on 2 May 1942. In the same year, on 7 September 1942, her two sisters Rosalie and Sophie de Beer-Berna were deported from the Westerbork concentration camp to Auschwitz. She herself was taken to the Westerbork camp on 19 Jan. 1943 and deported to Auschwitz just ten days later. None of the three sisters survived the deportation.


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

Stand: December 2019
© Hildgard Thevs

Quellen: 1; 2; 4; 5; Joodsmonument; Hamburger Adressbücher; StaH 314-15 OFP FVg 3264; StaH 332-5 Standesämter, 3553 u. 529/1927; StaH 351-11 AfW 16 552 Eg Jenny Heinemann, darin Ludwig Heinemann, 26 311 Herta Helene Goldschmidt, geb. Heinemann, 34200 Sophie Charlotte Heinemann, 8018 Ludwig Goldschmidt; StaH 352-3 Medizinalkollegium, Bukofzer/Apotheker; Stadtarchiv Kassel, Margit Mennicke, E-Mail 23.10. und postalisch.
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