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Dr. Clara Goldschmidt
© Ray Fromm

Clara Goldschmidt * 1886

Warburgstraße 26 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

HIER WOHNTE
DR. CLARA GOLDSCHMIDT
JG. 1886
GEDEMÜTIGT / ENTRECHTET
FLUCHT IN DEN TOD
9.1.1934

Clara Goldschmidt, born 11.5.1886 in Altona, died by suicide 9.1.1934 in Hamburg

Warburgstraße 26

Clara Goldschmidt was born as Sara Goldschmidt into a widely extended family in Altona with eight siblings. Why and when she later called herself Clara is unknown to us. She was a younger sister of Dr. med. Moses Goldschmidt (1873-1943), for whom a Stolperstein has been laid at An der Alster 21 Street (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de).

Resident earlier in Oldenburg, her ancestors had come to Altona in 1762. Her father, the merchant Salomon Goldschmidt (1844-1897), who led a strict, orthodox Jewish life, died at the age of 53, her mother Pauline Perle Lebiah (1848-1917) lived to 68. Both are buried at the Jewish Cemetery in Bornkampsweg.

Clara studied dentistry in Berlin, completed her studies in 1908 and received her medical licence at the age of only 22. At the suggestion of her uncle, Julius Goldschmidt, who had financed her studies following the death of her father, she moved to the USA for three quarters of a year to further her studies before establishing herself on 1st April 1910 as one of the first female dentists in Hamburg. She managed her practice together with Elsa Hopf, who later became her life companion.
In a registration application questionnaire dated 11th October 1933 for admission as a dentist to the state health insurance register, she declared having attended further advance training courses in Kiel, Düsseldorf, Berlin, and Hamburg.

The art historian Rosa Schapire (1874-1954) and her brother Moses’s father-in-law, art collector Jerôme Friedmann (1861-1913), awakened an interest in modern art in Clara. From 1910 onwards she was a passive member of the "Die Brücke” art movement and got to know the artist Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884-1976), who sent her several hand-painted postcards and from whom she bought his picture "Skrygedahl” that depicts a Norwegian landscape. Today the painting hangs in the Buchheim Museum of Phantasy in Bernried at Lake Starnberg.

In 1931, Clara was a founder member of the first Hamburg Zonta Club of professional women, together with, among others, Ida Dehmel, Alma del Banco and the shipowner Lucy Borchard. This association of professional women in leading positions still exists today and advocates women’s rights as well as the implementation of women’s affairs policies.

Due to the introduction of the professional ban by the National Socialists, Clara was not permitted to continue with her dental practice, as in Nazi parlance she was a "non-Aryan”.

In his memoirs that appeared in 2004 under the title "My Life as a Jew in Germany 1873-1939” Clara’s brother Moses writes: "Unfortunately, her mental energies were not sufficiently robust to withstand the rabble-rousing propaganda of the Hitler government. Totally broken, she died in January 1934.
Indeed, Clara committed suicide on 9th January 1934, one of the first victims to racial persecution. Her doctor’s doorplate had previously been daubed in red paint with the word "Jew”. She was buried in the Ohlsdorf Cemetery.

Stand: November 2025
© Ray & Anita Fromm / Sabine Brunotte

Quellen: StaH 332-5_6242; StaH 332-5_8126; https://www.hamburg.de/clp/frauenbiografien-suche/clp1/hamburgde/onepage.php?BIOID=4601&qN=goldschmidt Zugriff 18.10.2021; Traute Hoffmann, Der erste deutsche Zonta-Club, Auf den Spuren außergewöhnlicher Frauen, Hamburg 2002, S. 126 ff; https://www.zonta-hamburg.de/, Zugriff 29.11.2025; https://sammlung.buchheimmuseum.de/werk/0.00028a, Zugriff 29.11.2025.