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Wilhelm Nathansohn * 1886

Rumpffsweg 39 (Hamburg-Mitte, Hamm)

HIER WOHNTE
WILHELM
NATHANSOHN
JG. 1886
GEDEMÜTIGT / ENTRECHTET
FLUCHT IN DEN TOD
20.6.1938

further stumbling stones in Rumpffsweg 39:
Rosa Meyer, Alfred Meyer

Wilhelm Nathansohn, born on 9 Sept. 1886 Hamburg, flight to death on 20 June 1938 Hamburg

Rumpffsweg 39 (formerly: Eiffestrasse 571).

"Isn’t it terrible when you’re no longer comfortable giving your good name?” asked Wilhelm Nathansohn’s widow Anna in the restitution proceedings. She had changed her name after her husband’s death in order to have any chance of employment.

Her husband was the youngest of Abraham Nathansohn’s three children known to us, born on 3 Mar. 1842 or 1845 in Buk in what was then the Prussian Province of Posen. His father Chaim or Heimann, born in Rogasen (today Rogozno in Poland) in 1814, was a rabbi and Talmud scholar in Buk, and his mother Rebecka’s maiden name was Salinger. Abraham remained their only son, after the older brother died of cholera in Thorn (today Torun in Poland) in 1855.

In 1858 until his death on 31 July 1878, Chaim/Heimann worked in Hamburg at the Klaus (a Jewish educational institution) of the Levin Salomon Foundation. On 2 Jan. 1863, he was entered in the Hamburg register of citizens. After the death of his wife Rebecka in 1871, he entered into a second marital union and married (?) Kohl, née Weiskopf. When he died, he was buried in the cemetery in Ottensen, where his first wife had already been laid to rest.

Abraham Nathansohn became a watchmaker. He broke with Jewish tradition and entered into a "mixed marriage” ("Mischehe”) with a Christian woman on 16 Nov. 1878. The couple lived at Breite Strasse Hof [Courtyard] III on the second floor in Altona. The wife, Johanna Dorothea, née Cassel, born on 2 Dec. 1857 in Altona, was a dressmaker, 12 years her husband’s junior and the daughter of an innkeeper. They gave their children common North German names. Whether Abraham Nathansohn ever considered changing his name could not be verified.

The first child born, on 30 Apr. 1879, was Heinrich, named Chaim after his grandfather. On 1 June 1881, Meta Rebecka was born, bearing the names of both of her grandmothers, and finally Wilhelm, named after his maternal grandfather.

The children were between 7 and 15 years old when the marriage of Abraham and Johanna Dorothea Nathansohn was legally divorced on 27 Apr. 1894. We do not know with whom the children grew up. The mother married the firefighter Wilhelm Scheele four years later; Abraham Nathansohn remained without partner.

His son Wilhelm attended the eight-grade elementary school (Volksschule) until graduation around 1900 and then completed a trade apprenticeship as a plumber and fitter. As a journeyman, he had sufficient income to marry. He entered into a first marital union in Hamburg on 27 Aug. 1909, to Frieda Hermine Christiane, née Wiedemann, born on 12 Sept. 1888, two years his junior, the daughter of a laborer. She was a Christian like his mother.

Meanwhile, daughter Meta Rebecka Nathanson had also entered into a "mixed marriage.” Her husband, Fritz Carl Gustav von der Osten, was considerably younger than she (born on 21 Apr. 1897). On 17 Sept. 1906, their daughter Johanna Emilia Louise was born. She remained the only child.

Meta’s brother Heinrich Nathansohn remained single and moved to Berlin in 1925.

Her father, Abraham Nathansohn, occasionally spelled Nathanson, had meanwhile moved to Neustadt, where he lived at Kornträgergang 55 a when he died in the Israelite Hospital on 4 Jan. 1915, at the age of 72. On his death certificate, his occupation was given as that of a merchant. He was buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Ohlsdorf.

At the beginning of World War I, Wilhelm Nathansohn was 28 years old. He became a soldier, remained in the field until 1918 despite being wounded, and then returned, decorated with the Iron Cross and the Hanseatic Cross as well as the Wound Badge.

His marriage remained childless and it was legally divorced after ten years on 26 Aug. 1919. Both former spouses entered into second marital unions.

In 1922, Wilhelm Nathansohn married the widow Maria Sophie Anna Bachstein, née Pemöller, born on 22 July 1891, whose husband, Carl August Gustav Pemöller, born in Hamburg on 28 June 1889, had died in Hamburg on 16 June 1915. Maria Sophie Anna brought a son into the marriage, Gustav Karl Willi Erich, born on 27 Apr. 1912.

In 1921, Wilhelm Nathansohn obtained employment with the public health authorities as a company plumber at the St. Georg General Hospital, where he remained for the next 12 years. From 1924 onward, he was registered with his own address at Eiffestrasse 571. He had no children of his own.

Because Wilhelm Nathansohn was "half-Jewish” and thus "non-Aryan,” he was summarily dismissed from the civil service in Sept. 1933. Since he had a good reference, he appealed against this to then Senator of Health Ofterdinger. With reference to the "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” ("Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums”), however, the senator declared the dismissal legal.

Wilhelm Nathansohn then found work from time to time in small businesses without being covered by compulsory insurance, and his income was correspondingly low. Small instances of harassment made life difficult for him and his wife, but more substantial ones – such as the termination of their allotment garden and the fact that they were denied winter relief assistance – caused his hopes for a life such as he had known it until then to fade.

In May 1937, he still experienced the wedding of his stepson Gustav Karl Willi Erich Bachstein with Senta Amthor.

"Everything is getting worse after all, but no one is coming to get me.” With this decision, which Wilhelm Nathansohn expressed toward his wife in the summer of 1938, he departed from life. On 20 June 1938, around noon, he was found dead in the allotment garden area of the Horner Marsch.

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

Stand: August 2021
© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: 4, 5; Hamburger Adressbücher; Personenstandsregister; StaHH 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung, 8858; 331-5, 3 Akte 1938/1399 - unauffindbar; 332-8 Melderegister; JFHH ZW 11-21; StaHH 332-7 Bürgerregister, A I e 40 Band 7, 1845-75; Jüdische Friedhofsdatenbank Ottensen; https://de.linkfang.org/wiki/Kreis_Buk; http://www.litdok.de/cgi-bin/litdok?lang=de&t_idn=h05384%2B1%2C2; https://www.kedem-auctions.com/product/letter-from-r-chaim-nathansohn-rabbi-of-wreshna-to-rabbi-eliyahu-guttmacher-the-tzaddik-of-greiditz-good-year-wishes-65232-2/, Aufrufe 9.7.2020.