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Bescheinigung für Wilhelmina Rosenstern
© US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington

Richard Rosenstern * 1886

Eppendorfer Baum 39 (Hamburg-Nord, Hoheluft-Ost)

1941 Lodz
ermordet

Richard Rosenstern, born on 21 Nov. 1886 in Hannover, deported on 25 Oct. 1941 to Lodz, deported further in early May 1942 to Chelmno and murdered there

Eppendorfer Baum 39

Richard Rosenstern’s parents were the horse dealer Siegmund Rosenstern and his wife Therese, née Reinhardt. Richard attended the Goethegymnasium high school in Hannover until third year, then transferring to Realschule [a practice-oriented secondary school up to grade 10], and finishing school with the intermediate school-leaving certificate (Mittlere Reife). In Dortmund, he completed a commercial apprenticeship. He became a sales representative and travelling salesman for various companies at changing locations, including in Hannover and Cologne. In the First World War, he was stationed as a soldier in the territorial reserve (Landsturm) with the 76th Infantry Regiment in Hamburg, where he also settled eventually.

Richard had an older brother, Ludwig Rosenstern, born on 18 Sept. 1882, also in Hannover. Ludwig became a jurist with a doctoral degree, managing a respected law firm in Hannover with his partner Dr. Heinrich Müller from 1913 until 1915. Torn from his profession and drafted into the army in World War I, he was killed in action during fighting in Alsace on 27 May 1915 at Sondernach near Colmar. Rosenstern’s professional development unfolded anything but smoothly. For fraud, embezzlement, and other offenses, he was repeatedly imprisoned for periods ranging from several weeks to two years from 1909 until 1931. His marriage with Margarethe, née Oestreicher (born in 1894), broke down and was divorced. In 1933, when Rosenstern 1933 was once more released from prison, he had decided to change his life completely. He gave up the occupation of a traveling salesman and went in for training as a male nurse.

He had a chance to pursue this work for only a few years: With their racist decrees, the Nazis banned the Jewish Rosenstern in 1939 from caring for "Aryans.” He was 53 years old by then. Initially he eked out a living by doing unskilled labor in civil engineering projects, though earning so little that he was exempted from the Jewish religious tax (Kultussteuer) to the Jewish Community. In 1940, he was fortunate in finding a permanent position as a gardener with the Sundermann nursery in Hamburg-Niendorf. His workplace was at the swimming pool on Kaiser-Friedrich-Ufer. He earned net wages of 30 RM (reichsmark) a week, barely enough for a meager existence. Richard Rosenstern had remained true to his resolution, by that time not having committed any offense for nine years. Under no circumstances did he wish to lose his employment. Then, all of a sudden, he was arrested on 29 May 1941 and committed to the Fuhlsbüttel police prison. The charges referred to illegal trading. The entire proceedings against him were quite grotesque. Following an anonymous tip to the Gestapo, the criminal investigation department and the state police had searched the apartment of the Jewish woman Berta Strauss at Werderstrasse 65 on the third floor, allegedly finding and confiscating suspicious items in the process: a 750-milliliter bottle of oil, which later turned out to be paraffin oil, 1 pound of unroasted coffee, 3 pounds of lentils, and 1 pound of onions. Where did these goods come from?

Berta Strauss admitted to having bought the oil from Richard Rosenstern, residing at Eppendorfer Baum 39 on the fourth floor, with Strelitz, for 10 RM, and the coffee from Markus Braunschweiger (see corresponding entry), also Jewish. Rosenstern confessed. He had purchased the bottle from one Adolf Israel Wolf, who had it from his niece Johanna, who in turn had it from someone else, etc. Eventually, eight persons were in the dock of the Hamburg Regional Court (Landgericht). By reselling the bottle with a markup, all of them had become guilty of illegal commerce with many middlemen. The verdict dated 16 Sept. 1941 was three weeks in prison for Rosenstern. Facing this sentence, Rosenstern had to fear for his job. In a letter to the District Court (Amtsgericht) he asked "very humbly” at least not to publish his criminal record, "for I am done with my previous life.”
Rosenstern, meanwhile released from police prison, was supposed to start serving his sentence by 28 October. However, that never happened. On 25 Oct. 1941, he was deported to Lodz.

From a letter he wrote to the ghetto administration on 16 Apr. 1942, one can see that he had taken seriously ill, unable to leave the bed. He suffered from furunculosis. In late April or early May, he must have received the "resettlement order” ("Aussiedelungsbescheid”). In an undated letter, he asked the "expulsion commission” ("Ausweisungskommission”) to allow him to stay in Lodz. After all, he argued, he had worked serving the members of the Hamburg transport "with devotion and in an honorary capacity in my occupation as a male nurse for five months.” The application was turned down.

Between 6 and 15 May 1942, Richard Rosenstern was taken to Chelmno and murdered. He was 55 years old.

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On 16 Apr. 1942, Richard Rosenstern provided written confirmation for Wilhelmina Fischer – also deported from Hamburg and quartered at Rubenstrasse 2, apartment no. 8 – who probably had received the "order for resettlement” from Lodz as well, "that the very same stood by my side with devotion in any conceivable supporting manner during my illness, which has rendered me bedridden. In an astonishing way, she has familiarized herself with the special area unknown to her per se and I am convinced that Ms. Fischer is definitely suitable for medical service.”

In his signature, Rosenstern refers to his occupation as a male nurse. Wilhelmina Fischer, too, was murdered.
Source: USHMM, see illustration above


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

Stand: October 2018
© Johannes Grossmann

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 8; StaH 522-1 Jüd. Gemeinden, 992e2 Band 1; StaH 213-11, Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht-Strafsachen, 6463/42; StaH 332-8 Meldewesen, A 51 (Richard Rosenstern); StA Hannover, Geburtsurkunde Ludwig Rosenstern, I 59-3174/1882; StA Hannover, Sterbeurkunde Ludwig Rosenstern, I 948-3197/1915;Archiwum Panstwowe, Lodz (Getto-Archiv), Melderegister, PL-39-278-1011-19046.tif und 19047.tif; USHMM, RG 15083,M 300/526, 531-532, Fritz Neubauer, Universität Bielefeld, E-Mail vom 12.6.2010.
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