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Hertha Müller * 1909

Isestraße 57 (Eimsbüttel, Harvestehude)

1941 Minsk

further stumbling stones in Isestraße 57:
Paula Kaczar, Salomon Kaczar, Marianne Müller, Otto Müller, Sophie Müller, Wilhelm Müller, Kurt Holger Schmahl

Wilhelm Müller, born on 15 Aug. 1875 in Leer, deported on 18 Nov. 1941 to Minsk
Sophie Müller, née Löwenstein, born on 16 Apr. 1882 in Emden, deported on 18 Nov. 1941 to Minsk
Otto Müller, born on 25 Oct. 1907, deported on 8 Nov. 1941 to Minsk
Hertha Müller, born on 30 Apr. 1909, deported on 18 Nov. 1941 to Minsk
Marianne Müller, born on 15 Nov. 1910, deported on 18 Nov. 1941 to Minsk

The deportation must be seen in connection with that of the family members from Isestrasse 90:

Ernst Josef Müller, born on 30 Oct. 1906 in Gelsenkirchen, deported on 8 Nov. 1941 to Minsk
Cäcilie Müller, née Ambor, former married name (divorced) Becher, born on 9 Apr. 1919 in Blankenese, deported on 8 Nov. 1941 to Minsk
Denny Müller, born on 6 Mar. 1941 in Hamburg, deported on 8 Nov. 1941 to Minsk

How might Marianne Müller have spent her thirty-first birthday? Her two brothers – the oldest with his wife and small daughter – had been deported to Minsk the week before. Her parents, along with her and her sister Hertha, had reported "voluntarily” to be on the next transport, probably in the hopes of the family being reunited in the ghetto.

The father, Wilhelm Müller, was a native of Gelsenkirchen. Since 1920, he had owned a livestock and meat agency there, located on the premises of the slaughterhouse and associated with a large-scale stockyard. On 30 Apr. 1933, he had to give up the operation on the orders of the new rulers and he withdrew to live with his brother in Wilhelmshaven. That same year, he moved to Isestrasse 98 in Hamburg.

By that time, the "Aryan” general manager of his company in Gelsenkirchen had obtained permission to reopen the business, which he wished to continue operating with Müller’s sons Ernst Josef and Otto. However, when the three arrived at the stockyard in early August, they were chased away under death threats; the general manager was knocked unconscious. He later reported in the course of the "restitution proceedings” that the company had not been sold, "it simply ceased to exist.” An attempt by Wilhelm Müller to re-gain a foothold in his trade in Hamburg failed. The tax card file of the Jewish Community indicated his occupation to be "pensioner.” In fact, he probably salvaged enough of his assets to enable him and his family to cover their livelihood.

His wife Sophie had owned the residential property in Gelsenkirchen. It was sold to the mayor for about 20,000 RM (reichsmark). We have no information about the details of the sale but we may well suspect that it did not take place voluntarily.

Sons Otto and Ernst Josef attempted in 1939 to emigrate to Britain. They wished to work there as butchers, the trade they had been trained for. By June, they had gathered the necessary papers, the list with the moving goods had been checked, and they were allowed to take along working clothes and machinery required to equip a butcher’s shop. Otto also packed soccer cleats, small frames for photographs, an album with emergency money, and the prayer shawl. The moving goods were stored in a "lift van” (moving container), sealed in accordance with customs requirements, ready for transport by ship to London. For some reason, the departure was delayed. The Second World War broke out. Otto and Ernst Josef Müller’s path to Britain was blocked.

In July 1939, the Müller family moved to Isestrasse 57 into an apartment that was labeled with JWH [Jüdisches Winterhilfswerk, i.e., Jewish Winter Relief Organization]. Was it the apartment that the Kaczar couple had had to vacate upon their expulsion to Poland? Wilhelm Müller’s account had already been blocked since 1938, with a monthly sum set for disposal. On 14 Nov. 1941, the Chief Finance Administration (Oberfinanzdirektion) approved a special amount of 550 RM for the two sons who were already in Minsk by that time.

Before his deportation, Ernst Josef Müller had married Cäcilie Ambor (see Isestrasse 61 and 90), the daughter of a Hamburg merchant’s family. In the company of her father, Jakob Ambor, she had been employed as a commercial clerk until the "Aryanization.” Her first husband, Kurt Becher, whom she had divorced, had worked there as well. Having gone to Amsterdam in Nov. 1938, he was deported from the Netherlands to Sobibor. A "Stolperstein” at Steintorweg 11 commemorates him.

In Mar. 1941, Cäcilie and Ernst Josef Müller became parents of a daughter. They named her Denny. She was eight months old when she had to report, along with her parents, the grandmother on her mother’s side, Josepha Ambor, (see Isestrasse 61), and her uncle, Otto Müller, to [the deportation assembly point on] Moorweide. When she was supposed to be "loaded” on to the truck, she fell down onto the pavement and sustained serious injuries to her head. The relatives do not know whether the Gestapo officers applied force or whether it was an accident. On the train to Minsk, Josepha Ambor wrote a postcard that reached her daughter-in-law in Hamm. The text is only preserved as an oral paraphrase: "The journey goes eastward. It is bitterly cold. Denny is bleeding from her mouth and nose.” Probably, little Denny did not even survive the train journey.

The journey was only the beginning of the sufferings. The horror awaiting the deportees in Minsk went beyond anything imaginable. For the arrivals from the "Reich,” a "special ghetto” had been created within the larger ghetto, which already accommodated more than 40,000 Jews from territories occupied by the Germans: More than 10,000 ghetto inmates, mostly Russian, had been murdered to "make room.” The traces of the massacre had not been removed yet.

A female Russian contemporary reported, "We [Belarusian] Jews had already got used to the suffering, at least we were in our native country. We invited our [German] fellow sufferers to come to our part of the ghetto, to keep each other warm huddled against the small iron stoves, and to drink hot water. They, however, brought up in the spirit of German rigor, obeyed all of the Fascists’ orders. If something is prohibited, then it is prohibited no matter what the circumstances. Driven into deepest despair by the hunger, the cold, and the nightly destructive raids by the Russian air force, they tried lighting fires in the courtyard with anything they managed to get their hands on. In doing so, they courted death in order to escape from this distressing, nightmarish world – in the hopes of being received as martyrs in the hereafter.”

After Marianne’s birthday, Wilhelm and Sophie Müller along with their daughters Hertha and Marianne, had four days left until their "outmigration” ("Abwanderung”) as German officialese termed it. Then, on 18 Nov. 1941, they too set out on their ordeal, being deported on the second Hamburg transport to Minsk.

With the deportation to Minsk, all traces of the entire family disappear. We do not know any of their dates of death, and we have no information as to whether they perished weakened from starvation and forced labor or whether they were murdered outright.


Translator: Erwin Fink

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2017
© Christa Fladhammer

Quellen: 1; 2; AfW 150875; AfW 160482; mündliche. Auskunft Stéphanie Ambor; Heinz Rosenberg, Jahre des Schreckens: "… und ich blieb übrig, dass ich Dir’s ansage.", Göttingen 1992, S. 20; www.letzter-gruss-online Zugriff 24.1.2009: Ausstellungsprojekt über das Getto Minsk, Berlin 2007.
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