Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Max Schwarz * 1902

Neanderstraße 16 (Hamburg-Mitte, Neustadt)

HIER WOHNTE
MAX SCHWARZ
JG. 1902
FLUCHT FRANKREICH
INTERNIERT PITHIVIERS
DEPORTIERT 1942
ERMORDET IN
AUSCHWITZ

further stumbling stones in Neanderstraße 16:
Helene Schwarz

Helene Schwarz, née Edinger, born 12 Dec. 1877 in Hamburg, deported 6 Dec. 1941 to Riga-Jungfernhof
Max Schwarz, born 20 Dec. 1902 in Hamburg, deported from Pithiviers transit camp in France on 17 July 1942 to Auschwitz

Neanderstraße 16 (Elbstraße 60)

Helene Schwarz was born in the former Gänge District at Specksgang 57, the second child of the Jewish couple Simon Edinger (born 1 June 1843) and his wife Friederike, née Masson (born 27 May 1834). Her brother Siegfried, two years her senior, was born on 12 Oct. 1875. Her father Simon Edinger was a native of Cronberg (today Kronberg), a city borough of Frankfurt on the Main. In 1880 he became self-employed as an "real estate trader” at Neuen Steinweg 69. Her mother Friederike was a native of Dahlenburg near Lüneburg in Lower Saxony. In 1881 she had her own business selling second-hand goods registered at the 2nd Elbstraße 35 (today Neanderstraße). In 1884 the Edingers opened a so-called party goods store at the 2nd Elbstraße 2. In 1893 they purchased the building on Elbstraße which became number 60 in 1900 after the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Elbstraßes were combined, a street that then ran from the street Hütten to the Englische Planke.

On 13 Dec. 1900 Helene wed the bookkeeper Jacob Schwarz (born 22 Dec. 1872). The son of the "agent” (salesman) Ferdinand Schwarz (born 1846 in Busenberg) and Henriette, née Blum (born 1846 in Pirmasens), was a native of Pirmasens in the Palatinate Region. Her parents’ party goods store then turned into the shoe store Edinger & Schwarz, which Helene’s husband Jacob and her brother Siegfried Edinger ran together.

Their first child, their daughter Senta (Sentha), was born on 14 Sept. 1901, their son Max on 20 Dec. 1902. Evidently Jacob and Helene Schwarz divorced soon thereafter. Jacob Schwarz was registered as a lodger on Steinstraße (with interruptions) in Hamburg’s Altstadt as of the end of 1903. Their divorce became official on 1 Mar. 1912.

Helene continued to run the shoe store on her own and moved in with her mother Friederike at Neuen Steinweg 15. Her father Simon passed away on 25 Apr. 1904. At the start of 1919, she also moved the store to Neuen Steinweg. The renter she found for the space on Elbstraße was the Jewish furniture seller Siegmund Bleiweiss (see the Bleiweiss Family), and a butcher moved into the cellar space.

After her mother’s death on 12 Jan. 1926, Helene Schwarz continued to live on Neuen Steinweg until about 1932. She had already given up the shoe store. She then moved with her daughter Senta to Glindeweg 28 in Hamburg-Winterhude. In 1939 Helene Schwarz was again registered in Hamburg’s Neustadt at Elbstraße 60. Perhaps she had been given notice on her apartment after rental protections were suspended for Jews, or maybe she could no longer afford the rent for the apartment on Glindeweg. By order of the authorities, she had already surrendered her gold and silver valuables to the public purchase station on Gothenstraße. Since she could not afford to pay the "levy on Jewish assets” of 3,800 Reich Marks (RM) imposed on her, she had to take out a security mortgage against her property on Elbstraße.

As of Apr./May 1940, the rental income from her building went to the "Hamburg Property Management Society of 1938 Ltd.” which had been founded expressly to act as a trust for administering and expropriating Jewish property owners. Helene Schwarz was paid 50 RM monthly of the rental income that was already very low. In Oct. 1940, she was also forced to take her "Aryan” tenants to court because they denied her access to her third-floor apartment by cursing and threatening her. The three-storey office building, built in 1850, was not designed for several tenants. The stairwell connecting the floors did not have doors, and living in close quarters had evidently led to tensions for some time. After a hearing of both parties before the court, Helene Schwarz was surprisingly granted an injunction against her non-Jewish tenant Edith Bartels.

Shortly before her "resettlement” to Riga on 6 Dec. 1941, Helene gave her brother Siegfried Edinger general power of attorney that extended beyond her death.

Siegfried Edinger lived with his non-Jewish wife Dora, née Block (born 19 Aug. 1875, died 11 Feb. 1958), at Lehnhartzstraße 6 and was initially protected from deportation by his "mixed marriage”. However he was forced to give up his wholesale piano and grand piano business. In his application for redress of wrongs, he reported that when his sister received her "expulsion orders” she also received a form in which she had to list her assets. She had to drop off that list along with the key to her apartment the day of her deportation at her local police station at Großneumarkt 16. Her "tasteful furnishings”, as her brother described them, and the antique porcelain from their parents’ household were confiscated for the benefit of the German Reich. The auction house Landjunk took in proceeds of 717.90 RM at a public auction of her belongings on 1 May 1942. Her property at Elbstraße 60 was seized, the "levy against Jewish assets” retrospectively issued and the mortgage was struck from the land register by order of the chief finance authority. After the bombing of Hamburg in July/Aug. 1943, however, the building only had the value of a "rubble property”.

Helene’s daughter Senta had already been deported on a transport to "Litzmannstadt” ghetto in Lodz on 25 Oct. 1941. On 10 May 1942 she was "resettled” to Chelmno (Kulmhof) extermination camp. In Hamburg she had last lived with and worked as a maid for the Jewish couple Grete and Herbert Mitz at Isestraße 86. A Stumbling Stone has been laid there to remind us of her killing (see Stolpersteine on Hamburg’s Isestraße).

Her brother Max had left Hamburg in 1926. He lived in Frankfurt on the Main where his father, Helene’s divorced husband Jacob Schwarz, was also last registered. Max Schwarz was interned at the transit camp set up by the Vichy government for foreign and French Jews in Pithiviers, about 80 km south of Paris. From there he was sent on the 6th transport on 17 July 1942 to Auschwitz extermination camp.

His father Jacob Schwarz was deported on 15 Sept. 1942 from the street Großer Wollgraben 20 (today An der Staufenmauer) in Frankfurt on the Main to Theresienstadt where he died on 9 Feb. 1943. According to the announcement of his death, he died of a stroke.

Translator: Suzanne von Engelhardt
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: June 2020
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 7; 8; StaH 351-11 AfW 3473 (Schwarz, Helene); StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinde 374; StaH 314-15 OFP V1/73; StaH 314-15 OFP R 1940/976; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 1914 u 5899/1877; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 2947 u 1305/1900; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 13561 u 2488/1901; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 535 u 570/1904; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 8707 u 466/1915; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 911 u 18/1926; StaH 621-1/84 Firmenarchiv Ernst Kaufmann 115; Nationalarchiv in Prag/Theresienstädter Initiative, Jüdische Matriken, Todesfallanzeigen Theresienstadt (Jacob Schwarz); diverse Hamburger Adressbücher; Memorial de la Shoah, Musée, Centre de Documentation, http://bdi.memorialdelashoah. org/internet/jsp/core/MmsRedirector.jsp?id=54555&type=VICTIM (Zugriff 14.8.2013); http://www.sta tistik-des-holocaust.de/TT420915-71.jpg, (Zugriff 18.8.2014).
Zur Nummerierung häufig genutzter Quellen siehe Link "Recherche und Quellen".