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Adelheide Singer, Pass von 1920
© StaH

Adelheide Singer (née Gradenwitz) * 1886

Grindelberg 7 gegenüber Nr. 12 (Eimsbüttel, Harvestehude)

HIER WOHNTE
ADELHEIDE SINGER
GEB. GRADENWITZ
JG. 1886
DEPORTIERT 1941
ERMORDET IN
MINSK

Adelheide Singer, née Gradenwitz, born on 19 Sept. 1886 Hamburg, deported on 18 Nov. 1941 to Minsk

Grindelberg, opposite no. 7 (previously Grindelberg 12)

On 23 Dec. 1914, Adelheide Gradenwitz, born in Hamburg, married the shoemaker Mendel Singer, born on 28 Mar. 1888, a native of Zadowa in the Crown Land of Bukovina (then Austria-Hungary, today Zhadova in Ukraine). Both came from Jewish families. Mendel Singer was of German nationality and held Austrian citizenship. Through her marriage, Adelheide Singer became a German-Austrian. Mendel Singer had arrived in Hamburg as a shoemaker’s apprentice in 1908, starting a business of his own in 1913. For only 850 RM (reichsmark), he had, assisted by a loan from a Jewish association, purchased the basement apartment at Grindelberg 41 with an associated shoe store. He expanded the store by a workshop. On 10 Nov. 1914, he was admitted as a member to the German-Israelitic Community.

Adelheide Singer’s father, the tradesman and traveling salesman Oscar Joseph Gradenwitz, had died the year before. She had been given her unusual first name after her grandmother, Adelheide Gradenwitz, née Guttenberg. The grandparents, Adelheide, and the merchant Marcus Gradenwitz lived in Dyhernfurth in Lower Silesia (today Brzeg Dolny), a city with a vibrant Jewish Community, when their son Oscar was born on 30 Sept. 1849.

Oscar Gradenwitz later left his birthplace and took up residence as a tradesman in Hamburg-Neustadt in the 1880s. He married Zerline Vogel, born on 2 Dec. 1856 in Hamburg, also from a family of trades people and a resident of Hamburg-Neustadt. Adelheide, their only child, was born at 1st Marienstrasse 27. By the time she was enrolled in elementary school, the family had moved to Neuer Steinweg, where the father operated a business trading in men’s clothing. The grandparents, Samuel and Jeanette Vogel, née Blättner, as well as uncle Nathan Vogel with his wife Julie, née Graff, and their children – Hermann, Bertha, Zerline, John, Minna, Sara, and Siegmund – lived in the neighborhood. Nathan Vogel worked as a tradesman, auctioneer, and appraiser.

We do not know which school Adelheide attended or what type of training she received. The relocation of many Jews from Hamburg-Neustadt to the Grindel quarter at the beginning of the twentieth century was something Oscar Gradenwitz and Nathan Vogel with their families realized as well. Oscar Gradenwitz moved to Rentzelstrasse 17, where he lived until his death on 8 Oct. 1913. His brother-in-law Nathan Vogel, his next male of kin, gave notification of his death to the records office. Nathan Vogel passed away only three years later.

After her husband’s death, Zerline Gradenwitz gave up her previous apartment on Rentzelstrasse and moved with her daughter Adelheide, by then 26 years old, to the Z. H. May und Frau-Stift ("May-Stift”) at Bogenstrasse 25, where she continued to reside even after her daughter got married. Apparently, by the time of Adelheide and Mendel Singer’s wedding there were no male relatives left to act as witnesses to the marriage.

Mendel Singer was drafted into the Austrian army. Initially, he was not deemed fit to serve in combat, but then, on 13 Feb. 1915, he was deployed after all in the field artillery at Leitmeritz/Northern Bohemia (today Litomerice in the Czech Republic), eventually fighting in Italy, where he ended in captivity. He returned to his family only in Oct. 1919. On 25 July 1916, daughter Elsi Menie had been born, and she would remain the only child. Adelheide Singer had given her daughter the middle name, Menie, after the child’s grandmother, Mariem Menie Kasswan. Officially, Mendel Singer’s name was Mendel Kasswan, since his parents had been married according to Jewish rites, though he had always called himself Singer. The change of his last name had been granted to him by the imperial and royal regional government of Bukovina in Czernowitz (today Chernivtsi in Ukraine).

During her husband’s absence, Adelheide Singer continued to operate the company with a journeyman. Although the shoe business steadily declined since the beginning of the war due to lack of material, the repair operation flourished all the more.
After his return, Mendel Singer pressed on with his naturalization. Since he had a clean record and was able to document a taxable annual income of 3,000 RM, he, his wife, and their daughter received the naturalization certificate on 19 May 1920. That was not the end of it, however. Mendel Singer felt that the "first name of Mendel on his company plaque sounded alien and that he was hampered in business through this,” applying to the Hamburg Senate for a change of his first name to Max. Based on this body’s decision dated 14 Mar. 1923, he was permitted to call himself Max Mendel Singer henceforth, while Adelheide Singer went by the name of Alice only unofficially.

The economic situation of the Singer improved markedly during the year 1925. Max Mendel Singer had an easier time to support his mother-in-law, who was also assisted by being able to dine with her daughter on a daily basis. However, only a few years later, the family was hit by a cruel stroke of fate. On 14 Jan. 1928, at the age of only 40 years, Max Mendel Singer died of pulmonary tuberculosis, an illness stemming from the war, in Geesthacht at the Edmundsthal-Siemerswalde sanatorium. He was buried in the Ohlsdorf Jewish Cemetery. His widow received a small "military pension” from Vienna.

Adelheide Singer stayed in the apartment with her only eleven-year-old daughter Elsi and tried to continue running the business as she had done once before, but it went bankrupt in 1929. Her war widow’s pension was supplemented by disability compensation, though this was not enough to keep the apartment in the long run. Her earnings from monogram embroidery did not change her fundamental financial distress.

From welfare services and the Jewish Community, she received assistance to pay rent arrears and at first, she was able to reside in the two rooms toward the back. These were not only dark and cheerless but they also entailed such high heating expenses that welfare services urged her to change accommodation, especially since conflicts with the landlady had erupted several times. The last one of these ended in the seizure of Adelheide Singer’s piano.

Welfare services received an anonymous inquiry as to whether it was justified that Adelheide Singer relied on public funds, even though her daughter Elsi attended the private school run by Dr. Löwenberg and took piano lessons, that she employed a cleaning lady and had her net curtains done at the cleaners,’ and that Mrs. Singer was buying the best expensive matzohs. After checking this information, the welfare authority treated subsequent applications for support more restrictively than before. Elsi was recommended for the Hallerstiftung, a foundation that granted subsidies toward school education and training, respectively, which apparently turned the application down in this case, however. Elsi changed to the Volksschule on Carolinenstrasse, an eight-grade elementary school requiring no school fees, and finished it at Easter of 1932.

In the matter of another apartment, Adelheide Singer approached the housing department, which turned her application down as unjustified, however. She had to be content with a partial apartment and a makeshift kitchen, moving to Rentzelstrasse 52. Elsi began an apprenticeship as a shoe saleswoman. Her apprentice’s wages were added to her mother’s pensions, which meant that from then on the two had 125 RM a month at their disposal to make ends meet. In Feb. 1933, the mother and daughter moved again, once more into a one-bedroom apartment with a makeshift kitchen, located at Hansastrasse 69. One last time, Elsi received a support payment from the welfare office – for a set of underwear and a pair of socks.
Zerline Gradenwitz, Adelheide Singer’s frail mother, received ongoing support toward living expenses from the Jewish Community and the welfare department, and she continued to join her daughter for meals.

Following the Nazis’ assumption of power in 1933, the naturalization of Adelheide and Elsi Singer was scrutinized. This concerned first of all the legitimacy of the husband and father’s naturalization, as he was considered an "East European Jew” ("Ostjude”), and then their naturalization. Since nothing unfavorable was known about them and they were both born in Hamburg, their naturalization was confirmed as being perfectly legal.

After finishing school, Elsi Singer completed training as a shoe saleswoman. Even when she was still an apprentice, at the age of 18, she joined the Jewish Community as an independent member and remained so after getting married and giving birth to a child. On 29 Oct. 1935, she entered into matrimony with Erich Marcus, and on 24 Mar. 1936, daughter Silvia was born. Erich Marcus came from a Mecklenburg family whose members had taken up residence in Hamburg and Harburg (see "Erich Marcus” in Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Harburg und Wilhelmsburg).

In Oct. 1936, Adelheide Singer moved to Grindelberg 12. She was deemed fit for work and with writing addresses, she earned 3.5 RM for each set of 1,000 addresses, provided there was work available.
Her apartment became the gathering point for four generations. At first, her son-in-law with his family and she had one partial apartment each, consisting of two rooms a piece; then they shared a three-bedroom apartment and ran a joint household, which was also funded by Erich Marcus’ salary. Zerline Gradenwitz, by then 80 years old and suffering from rheumatism, was often unable to leave her bed. She stayed in the May-Stift, a residential home, because it featured central heating, and rented out one room to cover the costs. In order to save public funds, the welfare office applied pressure to the daughter and her family to take in the mother. Pointing to the lack of central heating and the cramped conditions, Adelheide Singer tried to prevent her mother from having to move in, but at the end of 1938, the welfare department terminated her benefits and henceforth Zerline Gradenwitz shared a room with her daughter.

Being Jewish, Adelheide Singer came under the authority of "special welfare” services (Sonderfürsorge). In Oct. 1939, she applied for assumption of costs for dentures. The application was turned down. Though as a Jewish woman, the argument went, she was eligible due to her status as a war veteran’s widow, there were not enough funds available. The children became unemployed and thus the financial distress mounted. At the end of 1940, Erich Marcus was deployed by the Gestapo as an excavator. Apparently, Elsi Marcus also performed forced labor. Probably Adelheide Singer cared for her granddaughter while the child’s parents labored.

On 11 Mar. 1941, Zerline Gradenwitz died at the age of 84 and she was buried in the Hamburg-Ohlsdorf Jewish Cemetery next to her husband, whom she had outlived by 27 years. Her granddaughter Elsi Menie Marcus gave notification of her death to the records office.

Seven months later, when the eastward transports of Hamburg Jews began, Adelheide Singer and her daughter’s family were still spared from the first deportation to Lodz. The two following transports went to Minsk. At first, mostly childless, strong persons were transported off, frequently only the fathers of families. They were forced to prepare the Minsk Ghetto for the subsequent transports of Jews from the German Reich, after the previous occupants had been killed in a bloody operation. Thus, initially only Erich Marcus and his parents received the order for "resettlement.” Elsi Menie Marcus, designated as a "laborer” by occupation, and her five-year-old daughter Silvia moved up from the list of replacements for this transport. Adelheide Singer and Erich’s aunt, Anna Mayer, followed them on the transport departing on 18 Nov. 1941. One can assume that in the Minsk Ghetto they lived together with their relatives, before they, too, were murdered.


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

Stand: January 2019
© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 7; Hamburger Adressbücher; StaH 332-5 Standesämter, 748-355/1916; 2131-4471/1886; 8015-453/1913; 8173-120/1941; 8698-408/1914; 332-7 Staatsangehörigkeitsaufsicht, B VI 1753; 332-8 Melderegister, K 6146, 7107; 351-14 Fürsorgewesen, 1230, 1848; 552-1 Jüdische Gemeinden, 391 Mitgliederlisten; 992 e 2 Deportationslisten, Bde 1, 2, 3, 5; 351-11 AfW 39704, 39705; Stadtarchiv Geesthacht, Sterberegister 16.1.1928; Fladhammer, Christa, Stolpersteine in der Hamburger Isestraße, S. 194 f.; Möller, Klaus, Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Harburg, S. 165–167; http://www.geesthacht.de/index.phtml?La=1&sNavID=1801.32.1&object=tx%7C17.68.1, Zugriff 6.8.2014; s. auch http://www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de/?&MAIN_ID=7&r_name=&r_strasse=schadesweg&r_bezirk=&r_stteil=&r_sort=Nachname_AUF&recherche=recherche&submitter=suchen&BIO_ID=2779; JFHH O 2 - 67, ZX 11 – 775/776.
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