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Oscar Löwenthal * 1873

Spaldingstraße 68 (Hamburg-Mitte, Hammerbrook)

HIER WOHNTE
OSCAR LÖWENTHAL
JG. 1873
EINGEWIESEN 1938
HEILANSTALT LANGENHORN
"VERLEGT" 23.9.1940
BRANDENBURG
ERMORDET 23.9.1940
"AKTION T4"

Oscar Löwenthal, born on 24 Mar. 1873 in Hamburg, murdered on 23 Sept. 1940 in the "euthanasia” killing center in Brandenburg/Havel

Spaldingstrasse 68 (formerly 12), Hammerbrook

Oscar Löwenthal’s parents came from Mecklenburg. His father Emil Löwenthal was born in Bützow in Apr. 1831, his mother Minna, née Arnhem, was born in Grabow in 1841. Emil Löwenthal, who worked as a merchant, was granted Hamburg citizenship in 1861. After their marriage in 1862, the couple moved into their first home at Graskeller 12 in Hamburg-Altstadt. Neither of them had previously been listed in the Hamburg directory.

Emil Löwenthal initially operated a warehouse for yard goods in Hamburg together with a partner at Graskeller 12, subsequently at Grosser Burstah 47, and from 1865, he worked on his own. In the following years, his warehouses were located at Admiralitätsstrasse 39, at Alter Wall 47, at Rödingsmarkt 7 with a branch warehouse in Ottensen, and at Bahrenfelder Strasse 44. The residential addresses also changed frequently. From 1871, the Löwenthal couple had settled for several years at Spaldingstrasse 12 in Hammerbrook. It was there that their son Oscar was born in 1873. Apparently, Oscar’s parents later separated, for his father died in 1882 at the age of 51 in Berlin. At that time, Oscar was nine years old. Oscar’s mother stayed in Hamburg. She died in 1910 at the age of 69.

Little is known about Oscar Löwenthal’s life. We know from a letter sent from the "Rickling Asylum” ("Ricklinger Anstalten”) to the Hamburg welfare authorities that he was a patient of this institution in 1938. This letter was about "exchanging” the Jewish men and women living in the Rickling Asylum for others. Allegedly, the management of the institution feared that it would lose its non-profit status and the tax benefits associated with it "unless German patients only are admitted to our hospital without exception.”

At least four patients were affected: Oscar Löwenthal, Erland Walter Friedland, Benjamin Engländer, and Felix Cohn (see corresponding entries). As of 22 Apr. 1938, Oscar Löwenthal and the other three Jewish patients left the Rickling Asylum. Oscar subsequently lived in the Langenhorn "sanatorium and nursing home” ("Heil- und Pflegeanstalt” Langenhorn).

In the spring/summer of 1940, the "euthanasia” headquarters in Berlin, located at Tiergartenstrasse 4, planned a special operation aimed against Jews in public and private sanatoriums and nursing homes. It had the Jewish persons living in the institutions registered and moved together in what were officially so-called collection institutions. The Hamburg-Langenhorn "sanatorium and nursing home” was designated the North German collection institution. All institutions in Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, and Mecklenburg were ordered to move the Jews living in their facilities there by 18 Sept. 1940. After all Jewish patients from the North German institutions had arrived in Langenhorn, they were taken to Brandenburg/Havel on 23 Sept. 1940, together with the Jewish patients who had lived there for some time, on a transport comprised of 136 persons overall. On the same day, they were killed with carbon monoxide in the part of the former penitentiary converted into a gas-killing facility. Only one patient, Ilse Herta Zachmann, escaped this fate at first (see corresponding entry).

We do not know whether Oscar Löwenthal’s relatives were notified of his death. In all documented death notices, it was claimed that the person concerned had died in Chelm (Polish) or Cholm (German). Those murdered in Brandenburg, however, were never in Chelm/Cholm, a town east of Lublin. The former Polish sanatorium there no longer existed after SS units had murdered almost all patients on 12 Jan. 1940. Also, there was no German records office in Chelm. Its fabrication and the use of postdated dates of death served to disguise the killing operation and at the same time enabled the authorities to claim higher care expenses for periods extended accordingly.

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

Stand: July 2020
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: 1; 5; 9; AB; StaH 133-1 III Staatsarchiv III, 3171-2/4 U.A. 4, Liste psychisch kranker jüdischer Patientinnen und Patienten der psychiatrischen Anstalt Langenhorn, die aufgrund nationalsozialistischer "Euthanasie"-Maßnahmen ermordet wurden, zusammengestellt von Peter von Rönn, Hamburg (Projektgruppe zur Erforschung des Schicksals psychisch Kranker in Langenhorn); 332-3 Zivilstandsaufsicht A 151 Geburtsregister Nr. 2042/1873 Oscar Löwenthal; 332-5 Standesämter 8002 Sterberegister Nr. 276/1910 Minna Löwenthal; 332-7 Staatsangehörigkeitsaufsicht A I e 40 Bd. 7 Bürgerregister 1845–1875 L-R; 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn Abl. 1/1995 Aufnahme-/Abgangsbuch Langenhorn 26.8.1939 bis 27.1.1941; Landesarchiv Berlin, Standesamt Berlin IV Nr. 1987/1882 Sterberegister Emil Löwenthal. Sutter, Peter, Der sinkende Petrus. Rickling 1933–1945, Rickling 1986, S. 173f., 247.
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