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Johanna Adler * 1866

Heider Straße 21 (Hamburg-Nord, Hoheluft-Ost)

HIER WOHNTE
JOHANNA ADLER
JG. 1866
DEPORTIERT 1942
THERESIENSTADT
1942 TREBLINKA
ERMORDET

further stumbling stones in Heider Straße 21:
Rosalie Adler

Johanna Adler, born on 20.12.1866, deported to Theresienstadt on 15.7.1942, deported on to Treblinka 21.9.1942 and murdered

Rosalie Adler, born on 22.5.1869, deported to Theresienstadt on 15.7.1942, deported on to Treblinka on 21.9.1942 and murdered

Heider Straße 21, Hoheluft-Ost

Elkan Adler, born on August 16, 1836 in Hamburg, and his wife Emma Adler, née Danziger, born on April 24, 1834 in Hamburg, had four daughters: Jenny, born on November 20, 1863, Jitta Ida, born in January 1865, Johanna, born on December 20, 1866 and Rosalie Adler, born on May 22, 1869. Jitta Ida Adler died on February 17, 1866 and was buried in the Grindel cemetery (which no longer exists).

Elkan Adler worked as a merchant. He acquired Hamburg citizenship on November 4, 1879. The family lived well off at Alter Steinweg 1.
We have no information about the childhood of Jenny Adler, Johanna Adler and Rosalie Adler.

As a young adult, Johanna Adler worked as an office clerk, while Rosalie, who called herself "Rosa”, earned her living as a sales clerk.

Jenny Adler trained as a pianist at the Hamburg Conservatory and continued her studies at the Leipzig Conservatory from 1880 to 1885. According to her teachers, she was very talented and performed occasionally during her training, but not afterwards. On February 15, 1891 in Hamburg, she married the son of a factory owner, Georges Julien Bédu, who was born in Paris on June 22, 1865. His parents were Achille Bédu and Anna Bédu, née Lamaire.
Georges and Jenny Bédu moved to Paris after their marriage. They lived there at 10 Rue Bausset.

The surviving files on the Adler family reveal a close sense of togetherness, which presumably remained even after Jenny Bédu and her husband moved to Paris.

Johanna and Rosalie Adler and their parents stayed in Hamburg: in 1892 they lived at Holstenplatz 9 in Altona-Altstadt, in 1893 at Rutschbahn 5 and in 1894 at Grindelallee 36 in the Rotherbaum district, then in that street No. 38 and then No. 39. Elkan Adler died on April 6, 1905 in the apartment at Rutschbahn 39 and was buried in the Ilandkoppel Jewish Cemetery.

In 1907, Emma Adler used her husband's inheritance to buy a house for herself and her daughters in Eimsbüttel at Wiesenstraße 46-48 on the corner of Eichenstraße. The rental income from the 19 apartments provided Emma Adler and her daughters with additional income.

Around 1910, the Adler family moved into a four-room apartment on the second floor of Rutschbahn 15. Johanna and Rosalie Adler cared for their mother until her death on May 5, 1926, just as they had previously cared for their father. Emma Adler was buried next to her husband in the Ilandkoppel Jewish cemetery.

The Nazi takeover in 1933 also fundamentally changed the Adler sisters' living conditions. In 1934, they downsized their household and moved into a three-room apartment at Heider Straße 21 in Hoheluft-Ost.

Jews were now gradually excluded from non-Jewish associations, foundations and many areas of society. The Jewish community became increasingly important as a social center. Among other things, it offered care facilities to alleviate the hardship. Until the end of November 1941, these included serving food to needy members of the community in the Innocentiastraße 37 home and, from 1941, in the Volksküche at Schäferkampsallee 27. The "Jewish Cultural Association” offered lectures and entertainment in the community center in Hartungstraße for the Jewish people, who were now excluded from all other cultural events. We do not know whether Johanna and Rosalie Adler took advantage of these opportunities.

In 1935, the Chief Tax Authority determined a unit value of 56,800 RM for the houses at Wiesenstraße 46-48. The state calculated the future taxes that the three Adler sisters now had to pay according to this unit value. For the years 1936 and 1937, Johanna Adler applied to the tax office to be allowed to pay the property tax of 60 RM due for her sister Jenny Bédu. To do this, Jenny Bédu had to submit a written waiver of the rental income tax. To this end, Jenny Bédu had to sign a written waiver of the rental income, which Johanna Adler submitted to the Chief Tax Authority. The Chief Finance Directorate also demanded that Johanna Adler pay the tax of 98 RM for the years 1937 and 1938 retroactively for Jenny Bédu.

However, the sisters were no longer allowed to dispose of their property: on August 2, 1938, the Chief Tax Authority transferred the management of the property to the estate agent Ludwig Schrabisch. In August 1939, the Chief Finance Directorate asked Johanna and Rosalie Adler to sell the houses. The administrator, himself a real estate agent, was commissioned to handle the sale.

The houses were sold to a Johannes Jacobs, who lived at Reventlowstraße 54. The proceeds were even lower than the standard value, which in turn was usually far below the market value. The sisters each received RM 12,000, which had to be paid into a blocked account that Johanna and Rosalie Adler could only use with the approval of the foreign exchange office. The RM 12,000 for Jenny Bédu was also transferred to a blocked account. In addition to the proceeds from the sale of the house, Rosalie Adler also had a savings bank book with 270 RM.
Like all "full Jews”, the sisters had to become members of the Reich Association of Jews in Germany more precisely of the former Jewish Community of Hamburg, which had become part of this Reich Association. The Reichsvereinigung levied ordinary and sometimes extraordinary contributions for its members, which were calculated according to the income and assets of those affected.

Johanna and Rosalie Adler had the aforementioned proceeds from the sale of their house and they also each received a pension for which they had paid into the Reich insurance scheme for several years. Johanna Adler had applied for her pension in 1934, now aged 67, and it was approved in 1936. She received 52 RM per month. Rosalie Adler had submitted a pension application in 1933, which was approved in 1935. Rosalie Adler, now 65 years old, received a pension of RM 36.80.

In October 1939, the Chief Finance Directorate asked both sisters to declare their income. They were then notified by post that each of them was only allowed to use 171.50 RM from their own assets to cover their living expenses.

Both women lodged an objection, which resulted in the amount being increased to RM 200 per month. The rent for the apartment was 80 RM. The sisters also paid a levy of RM 10 to the Jewish Religious Association for Jews in need.

Tenant protection for Jewish people was lifted on April 30, 1939. This gave the authorities the opportunity to concentrate the expelled Jews in certain parts of the city, especially the Grindel area. This had to be organized by the Jewish Religious Association, which was under the supervision of the Gestapo. Most of the Jews who had been evicted were assigned to "Jews' houses”, which were often converted from buildings which were owned by Jewish foundations.

Johanna and Rosalie Adler were also affected and had to move to the "Jews' house” at Bundesstraße 43, i.e. the former John R. Warburg-Stift, on February 20, 1942. In the meantime, four large deportations had left Hamburg in the fall and winter of 1941. Older Jews, however, had been put on hold. They received deportation orders to Theresienstadt for July 15 and 19, 1942. Many of them no longer wanted to make this journey, including Johanna Adler's roommate in the Stiftsgebäude, Anna Flora Gaden: On July 10, 1942, Johanna Adler knocked on her door without receiving an answer. In the unlocked apartment, she found Anna Flora Gaden, who had taken an overdose of sleeping pills, and called an ambulance. Anna Flora Gaden died on July 16, 1942 (There is a Stumbling Stone for Anna Flora Gaden at Kegelhofstraße 44 in Eppendorf).

On September 21, 1942, Johanna and Rosalie Adler were deported from Theresienstadt to the Treblinka extermination camp with another 2018 people and murdered.

After the war, the Jewish Trust Corporation for Germany claimed the 674.92 RM for the auctioned household effects of Johanna Adler and Rosalie Adler from the Central Office for Property Management. The money paid in by Johanna Adler and Rosalie Adler for the "home place” in Theresienstadt was never refunded.

The fate of sister Jenny Bédu and her husband Georges Julien Bédu:
The couple had two children Jeanne, born in 1893, and Ida Bédu, date of birth unknown. Jeanne Bédu later married Georges Louis Collet, born in 1892, and Ida Bédu married Maurice Cerbelaud. We have no further information about this branch of the family.

Translation: Beate Meyer
Stand: December 2024
© Bärbel Klein

Quellen: 1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 6; 7; 9; StaH 213-11 Landgericht Hamburg – Rückerstattung 15457 (Rosalie Adler), 13154 (Johanna Adler); 331-5 Unnatürliche Sterbefälle_Akte 1155/1942 (Anna Flora Gaden); 332-3 Zivilstand 22 Geburtsregister Nr. 6319/1866 Johanna Adler, 69 Geburtsregister Nr. 2811/1869 Rosalie Adler; 332-5 Heiratsregister 2776 Nr. 138/1899 Jenny Adler/Julien Bédu; 332-7 Bürgerprotokoll A I f 157 Nr. 8009/1879; 741-4 Fotoarchiv K 5758 (Adler), K2253 (Heider Straße); 522-1_1042 Bekanntmachungen und Rundschreiben des Jüdischen Religionsverbandes vom 31.3.1942, Nr. 25; 522-01 Jüdische Gemeinden_0338 b (Kartei der Israeliten); Stefanie Fischer, Familie und Alltag, in: Hamburger Schlüsseldokumente zur deutsch-jüdischen Geschichte, 22.09.2016. [Zugriff 5.3.2023]; ITS Archives Bad Arolsen Digital Archive 1.1.42.3 [513740] Archivnummer, Gedenkbuch Theresienstadt, Mail vom 3.1.2022 Martin Kriwet; Alfred Gottwald und Diana Schulle, Die Judendeportationen aus dem Deutschen Reich, Wiesbaden 2005 Seite 281 und 298; www.wikipedea.de (Zugriff 8.10.2021); Jenny Adler: https://mugi.hfmt-hamburg.de/receive/mugi_person_00000004 (Zugriff 2.4.2023).
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