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Gertrud Hoffmann (née Weiss) * 1891

Ifflandstraße 8 (Hamburg-Nord, Hohenfelde)

HIER WOHNTE
GERTRUD
HOFFMANN
GEB. WEISS
JG. 1891
FLUCHT 1939
ENGLAND
TOT 19.9.1940
BOMBENANGRIFF LONDON

further stumbling stones in Ifflandstraße 8:
Dr. Gustav Hoffmann, Ina Löwenthal

Dr. Gustav Hoffmann, born on 17 May 1883 in Hamburg, perished on 19 Sept. 1940 in exile in London during an air raid
Gertrud Hoffmann, née Weiss, born on 5 Jan. 1891 in Berlin, perished on 19 Sept. 1940 in exile in London during an air raid

Ifflandstrasse 8

Gustav Hoffmann was the oldest of three sons of the commercial agent Louis Hoffmann and his wife Johanna, née Magnus. The family lived at Gneisenaustrasse 48 in Eimsbüttel. Louis Hoffmann died in 1927 at the age of 77; Johanna lived until 1930. Gustav’s brothers Max and Hans Hoffmann became sales representatives like their father. The three remained based in Hamburg.

Gustav Hoffmann broke new professional ground. He studied medicine. In 1909, he settled in Hamburg as a general practitioner and obstetrician and ran a thriving practice. Nothing is known about his wife except that she shared his life and perished with him. Gustav and Gertrud Hoffmann had two children together: Kurt Leopold was born in Hamburg on 21 Sept. 1919 and Hilde Hariassa almost two years later, on 13 Sept. 1921, also in Hamburg.

Kurt and Hilde Hoffmann as well as a fellow doctor, who had known Gustav Hoffmann well, spoke in 1955 about the last years of the family’s life in Hamburg. All three reported how the family’s living conditions were gradually restricted under the Nazi regime.

Kurt Hoffmann wrote, "My father was a general practitioner and obstetrician and had a large statutory health insurance and private practice at Hammerbrookstrasse 28. We lived in a five-room apartment at Borgfelderstrasse 24, but after my father’s welfare and health insurance license was revoked, he could not keep both, gave up the apartment and the practice rooms, and merged them at Hammerbrookstrasse 28. My father’s private practice also came to a halt (after 1933) because patients who wanted to call on him were beaten and threatened. Since we were subjected to constant mobbing under Nazi rule and a house search was also carried out in our apartment, I decided to emigrate.”

He left the Talmud Tora School in sixth year (Untersekunda) and emigrated to Palestine in Nov. 1935 with the support of relatives. His sister Hilde left school two years later, also at the age of 16, in Hamburg and emigrated to Palestine in Mar. 1937. She wrote about her final days in Hamburg: "I attended the Loewenberg School in Hamburg and then the Realschule [a practice-oriented secondary school up to grade 10] on Karolinenstrasse. This school was far away from our apartment and located in an area where no Jews lived. So on my way to school, I was so harassed and verbally accosted by the Hitler Youth that I had to leave school in fourth year [Untertertia] in Dec. 1936.”

In 1933/34, the family lived at Ifflandstrasse 8 and in 1935, Gustav Hoffmann was deprived of his "welfare practice” in the course of measures against Jewish doctors. This meant that he could no longer treat patients for whom the welfare authority reimbursed the costs. His doctor colleague testified that this had led to a sharp drop in income for the practice, as Gustav Hoffmann treated many patients in need.

As a result of the difficult living conditions, the Hoffmann parents supported Kurt and Hilde’s emigration to Palestine. Both children survived because of it. For them, however, the flight meant not least of all the abandonment of their school education, which could not be continued in Palestine.

Gustav and Gertrud Hoffmann stayed in Hamburg. On 1 Jan. 1938, Gustav Hoffmann’s statutory health insurance practice also went out of business. His license to practice medicine was revoked on 30 Sept. 1938. His colleague also recalled that Gustav Hoffmann had been forced to sell part of his furniture. He then moved with his wife, residing as subtenants with Dr. Siegfried Baruch on Abendrothsweg in Eppendorf.

At the beginning of July 1939, Gustav and Gertrud Hoffmann fled Germany to Britain, but their planned destination was the USA. However, this did not happen anymore. Once again, the doctor colleague recounts, "When he [author’s note: Gustav Hoffmann] did not receive the visa to the USA applied for there, he tried to move on to Israel [author’s note: then Palestine]. He was killed in a bombing raid in London on 19 Sept. 1940.”

There was a sequel to this. Kurt Hoffmann wrote, "As far as I know, my father put his medical equipment and most of the valuable furniture in a lift. This lift stopped in the port of Hamburg.” The lift (moving container) was held back in the port. Alleged tax arrears apparently prevented the container from leaving for London despite the freight costs having already been paid by Gustav Hoffmann. Instead, its contents were put up for auction by the Secret State Police (Gestapo) on 21 May 1942. On this score, the corresponding form stated, "The items put up for auction are sold voluntarily.”

At the time of the auction, Gustav Hoffmann and his wife had not been alive for a year and a half.

Stolpersteine have been laid for Max Hoffmann at Brahmsallee 6 and for Hans Hoffmann at Rappstrasse 13.


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

Stand: December 2019
© Ulrike Martiny Schüddekopf

Quellen: StaH 351-11 6504, Wiedergutmachungsakte Dr. Gustav Hoffmann; StaH 214-1 359, Dr. Gustav Hoffmann; Transportcontainer mit Praxiseinrichtung und Möbeln – Versteigerung; StaH 522-1, 992, Kultussteuerkarten für 1920–1935 und 1936–1939; div. Adressbuch von Hamburg; von Villiez, Anna, Mit aller Kraft verdrängt. Entrechtung und Verfolgung "nicht arischer" Ärzte in Hamburg 1933 bis 1945, München und Hamburg 2009.