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Oscar Bernhardt * 1878

Rothenbaumchaussee 95 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

HIER WOHNTE
OSCAR BERNHARDT
JG. 1878
FLUCHT 1938 HOLLAND
INTERNIERT
DEPORTIERT 1944
AUSCHWITZ
ERMORDET

Oscar Samson Bernhardt, born 15.3.1878 in Hamburg, fled to the Netherlands in summer 1938, interned at Kamp Westerbork on 17.5.1944, deported to Auschwitz on 19.5.1944, murdered

Rothenbaumchaussee 95, Rotherbaum

Oscar Samson Bernhardt was born on 15 March 1878 at Rothenbaumchaussee 74a in Hamburg-Rotherbaum. According to the birth register entry, his twin sister Olga Margaretha was born half an hour before him. The parents, the merchant Martin Bernhardt, born on 17 Feb. 1840 in Teterow/Mecklenburg, and his wife Fanny, née Levy, born on 15 June 1854 in Hamburg, had married on 31 Dec. 1872 in Hamburg. They professed the Jewish faith.

Since the 1850s, the "Bernhardt, Meyer & Co. company, warehouse of shawls and manufactured goods" was listed in the Hamburg address book at Rothenbaumchaussee. One of the owners was Martin Bernhardt, Oscar Samson's father. His private address was Neue Rabenstraße 18, from 1868 Rothenbaumchaussee, initially house number 71, from 1874 house number 74a.

Martin Bernhardt had given procuration to his wife Fanny (comprehensive power of attorney) for his company in January 1878. One and a half year later, on 27 July 1880, he was found dead in the cellar of the Central Hotel in the street Zweiter Durchschnitt 68-72, also located in the Rotherbaum district. The exact circumstances of his death are not known.

His widow Fanny continued to live with the twins at Rothenbaumchaussee 74a until 1887, when she moved to Hallerstraße 43. In 1893 she found an apartment at Rothenbaumchaussee 71a. Probably in 1900, she got an apartment at Rothenbaumchaussee 95 when the building that still exists today was completed. Fanny Bernhardt should not have had any economic problems during these years; she is listed in the Hamburg address book as "Privatiere."

We have no information about Oscar Samson Bernhardt's childhood and youth. In 1926 he married Marie Catharina Sievers, who was born in Altona on 29 May 1898, coming from a Lutheran working-class family. The marriage was divorced in April 1932. It seems to have remained childless.

Oscar Samson Bernhardt fled Germany for the Netherlands in June 1938. His last known address there was Amsterdam, Biesboschstraat 64a. The German occupation of the country brought drastic persecution measures for both local Jews and those who fled there, above all the internment in the Westerbork camp. Oscar Samson Bernhardt was sent to the Westerbork "police transit camp for Jews" on 17 May 1944, and deported to Auschwitz on 19 May.

In addition to these data, the Dutch Red Cross stated in November 1945 that nothing more had become known about Oscar Samson Bernhardt since his deportation. "Considering that the deported persons were generally gassed immediately upon arrival at this camp [and] cremated afterwards, it can be stated that [...] Oscar Samson Bernhardt died on or about 5/22/1944 in or in the vicinity of Auschwitz as a result of gas asphyxiation."

Oscar Samson Bernhardt was declared dead on 4 Feb. 1949.

Olga Margaretha Bernhardt, Oscar Bernhardt's sister, had attended Carl Pracht's private high school for girls at Ernst-Merck-Straße 15 in Hamburg. At the age of fourteen she converted to Christianity. She trained as a painter in Munich and belonged to the Reichsverband der Bildenden Künstler Deutschlands, which existed from 1927 to 1933. After her training, she returned to Hamburg to her mother.

On 15 July 1903, she married Herrmann Guttmann, a Jewish commercial agent, born in Posen on 28 June 1870. This marriage produced two children, Martin (date of birth unknown) and Elisabeth Margareta, born on 23 Dec. 1905. The marriage was divorced in 1914. Olga Margaretha Guttmann referred to herself as a widow after the divorce.

She married a second time in 1915 to Josef Bandler, born in 1885 in Rumburg in Bohemia, a brother of Heinrich Bandler, concertmaster of the Philharmonic Orchestra in Hamburg. (This musician, who died on 8 June 1931, was buried in Ohlsdorf Cemetery in the presence of Mayor Carl Wilhelm Petersen and other Hamburg notables).

Olga Margaretha and Josef Bandler lived well situated in Berlin-Zehlendorf in the street Auerhahn 13. On 24 Aug. 1916 their son Kurt was born. Olga Margaretha Bandler mentioned in the reparation proceedings after the war that she had had four children. Details about the fourth child are not known.

Olga Margaretha Bandler, who had converted to Christianity in her youth, was again considered a Jew by the National Socialists after they had come to power. She was subjected to all discrimination directed against Jews. She was no longer allowed to work as an artist and became completely impoverished. In 1938 she moved in with her mother at Rothenbaumchaussee 95, having previously separated from her husband. She made preparations for the emigration to Argentina for herself and her son Kurt from her marriage to Josef Bandler. They both fled Germany on 30 July 1938. Martin, her son from the first marriage, was already staying there.

Olga Margaretha Bandler's daughter Elisabeth Margareta had been married since 22 May 1926 to the Jewish gynecologist Walther Bernhard Neubauer, born on 15 Feb. 1894 in Rothendithmold (today a district of Kassel). This family, including their daughter Susie, born in Hamburg on 25 Aug. 1928, emigrated to Shanghai in 1933.

Fanny Bernhardt, Oscar Samson's mother, remained behind in Hamburg. She had to leave her apartment at Rothenbaumchaussee 95 in September 1942 and was sent to the "Judenhaus" Beneckestraße 6. She died on 26 Oct. 1942 in the nursing home of the Jewish Religious Association, as the Jewish community had to call itself by then, at Schäferkampsallee 29, which was abused as a "Judenhaus."

Translated: Elisabeth Wendland

Stand: April 2023
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: Adressbuch Hamburg, 1; 2; 4; StaH 231-3 Handelsregister B 11848 Martin Bernhardt & Co, 314-15 Oberfinanzdirektion FVg 3315 Olga Margaretha Bandler verw. Guttmann, 332-3 Zivilstandaufsicht B 105 Geburtsregister Nr. 3/1873 Martin Bernhardt, 332-5 Standesämter 8928 Geburtsregister Nr. 766/1878 Olga Margaretha Bernhardt, Nr. 767/1878 Oscar Samson Bernhardt, 6303 Geburtsregister Nr. 1576/1898 Marie Catharina Sievers, 14497 Geburtsregister Nr. 695/1905 Elisabeth Margareta Guttmann, 8624 Heiratsregister Nr. 359/1878 Olga Margaretha Bernhardt/Herrmann Guttmann, 9608 Heiratsregister Nr. 262/1926 Walther Neuerbauer/Elisabeth Margareta Guttmann, 8179 Sterberegister Nr. 504/1942 Fanny Bernhardt, 7772 Sterberegister Nr. 1703/1880 Martin Bernhardt, 8107 Sterberegister Nr. 293/1931 Heinrich Bandler, 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung 3795 Olga Bandler, 15916 Dr. Walther Neubauer. Anna von Villez, Mit aller Kraft verdrängt. Entrichtung und Verfolgung "nicht arischer" Ärzte in Hamburg 1933 bis 1945, Hamburg 2009, S. 369f.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsverband_bildender_Künstler_Deutschlands, Zugriff am 7.10.22.
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