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Fanny Glückstadt in Brüssel
© Nathan Ben-Brith

Fanny Glückstadt (née Levy-Adler) * 1894

Hochallee 121 (Eimsbüttel, Harvestehude)

1942 aus Drancy nach Auschwitz
ermordet

further stumbling stones in Hochallee 121:
Werner Glückstadt, Ruben Richard Glückstadt, Jacob Mathiason

Richard Glückstadt, born on 21.7.1887 in Hamburg, emigrated to Brussels in 1933, died on 12.9.1940 after Gestapo interrogation in Brussels

Fanny Glückstadt, born on 15.3.1894 in Hamburg, emigrated to Brussels in 1933, deported to Auschwitz on 4.9.1942 and murdered

Werner Glückstadt, born on 29.5.1925 in Hamburg, emigrated to Brussels in 1933, deported to Auschwitz on 4.9.1942 and murdered

Hochallee 121

The Glückstadt family belonged to the educated Jewish middle class in Hamburg. The Grindel district of Hamburg was the center of their lives. As well the banker Richard Ruben Glückstadt as his three sons attended the Talmud Tora school.

Richard Ruben Glückstadt was born on July 21, 1887 in Hamburg's Wexstraße as the first of seven children. He completed a banking apprenticeship from 1905 to 1908 at the bank of Hugo Mainz. He then lived at Dillstraße 8. According to the Hamburg address book, he described himself as a "commission agent" until 1918. During the First World War, he served as a soldier, first on the Franco-Belgian front and later as a medic. He experienced the end of the war as a medic in a Hamburg military hospital.

In December 1918, he founded banking house Richard Glückstadt, which was registered in the commercial register as "Fondsmakler" and in the Hamburg address book from 1924 as "Bankhaus".

Richard Glückstadt was also involved in the Jewish community and held the office of parnas (head) of the Bornplatz synagogue. He was also a member of the men's section of the sports club Eimsbüttler Turnverein (ETV). (He is commemorated among other victims on a memorial stele of the club in Bundesstraße).

He initially ran his banking business at Gröningerstraße 35 and from 1930 onwards at Königstraße 7/9 together with his brother Leo. His brother Leo had been an authorized signatory in Richard's company since 1920 and became a partner in 1923. From 1932, the business premises were located at Deichtorstraße 8.

On February 17, 1920, Richard Glückstadt married Fanny Adelheid Levy (born March 15, 1894 in Hamburg). Unfortunately, nothing could be found out about her school education. According to the grandson of Richard and Fanny Glückstadt, his grandmother was an opera singer until her marriage. However, no information has been found about any vocal training, employment, or engagements.

Richard and Fanny Glückstadt had three sons: Siegfried (born February 24, 1921), Manfred (born July 1, 1922) and Werner (born May 29, 1925). After their marriage, the couple initially lived at Isestraße 119 (the same address as Fanny's parents Moses and Henriette Levy), then from 1922 at Oberstraße 107 and from 1932 until their emigration to Brussels, now with three children, at Hochallee 121.

Shortly after the National Socialists came to power, the family emigrated to Belgium in March 1933, where Richard Glückstadt resumed his banking business. He initially ran a banking business in Antwerp, which he later handed over to his brother Leo in order to set up a branch in Brussels. He succeeded in transferring a large part of his assets to Belgium, enabling the family to rebuild a financially secure life in a three-storey villa in Brussels-Schaerbeek. The sons first had to learn French in order to continue their school careers. This was achieved with the help of private tuition. After graduating, Manfred worked in a bank in Brussels and Siegfried worked for a haulage company.

But when the German Wehrmacht occupied Belgium on May 10, 1940, the family's life changed radically. Now they were once again persecuted in Brussels. Shortly after being interrogated by the Gestapo, Richard Glückstadt suffered a fatal stroke on September 12, 1940 at the age of 53. No evidence of previous persecution or imprisonment could be found in the Belgian archives. However, the fact that the fatal stroke occurred in his home shortly after an interrogation suggests that there was a connection to the persecution measures.

During and after the occupation of Belgium, many Jews escaped persecution and fled the country, including the older sons Manfred and Siegfried Glückstadt. Manfred Glückstadt was captured in France and initially taken to the St. Cyprien internment camp. From October 1940 to March 1941, he was a prisoner in the Camp de Gurs internment camp and was then sent to a labor company as a forced laborer on March 3, 1941. He was able to escape from there in 1942 and make his way to Havana. He had probably obtained an entry permit to Cuba with the help of his uncle Theodor Levy (brother of his mother Fanny). (He lived in New York from 1948 and spent his life there with his wife and two sons until his death on March 30, 2002).

Siegfried Glückstadt was able to flee from France via Portugal to Guayaguil/Ecuador in 1941. He managed to do so thanks to his work in the resistance movement, where he was able to obtain forged papers identifying him as an Ecuadorian journalist. (In Guayaquil, he worked in the air freight business and met his future wife from New York on a trip to Miami in 1948. In 1950, he opened a freight forwarding business in Miami and lived there until his death on August 27, 2001).

The youngest son, Werner Glückstadt, was no longer able to complete his schooling in Brussels, having missed a year of school. He also intended to emigrate to Ecuador, but this never happened. Due to the persecution of Jews in occupied Belgium, his mother and he were the last of the family to flee to France in the winter of 1940/41. As "undesirable foreigners", they were quickly arrested and taken to the existing internment camps. The first stop for Fanny and Werner Glückstadt was St. Cyprien, where they also met their brother-in-law and uncle Leo Glückstadt. St. Cyprien was an internment camp on the French Mediterranean coast near the Spanish border, which is described as being on the edge of tolerability. Hunger and the wretched sanitary conditions led to several epidemics. While the persecuted Jews were initially able to hope for rescue in unoccupied France, they had to give up this hope after the defeat of France.

In October 1941, Fanny and Werner Glückstadt were transferred to the largest French internment camp, Camp de Gurs, north of the Pyrenees. After staying there for just under a year, Fanny Glückstadt and her 17-year-old son Werner were deported from Camp de Gurs to Auschwitz via the Drancy collection camp (north-east of Paris) on September 4, 1942 on convoy no. 28. Fanny Glückstadt was murdered there. Before arriving in Auschwitz near Cosel, Werner Glückstadt was transported with other male deportees to a branch of Auschwitz for forced labor, where he died of hunger and exhaustion in the winter of 1942/43. Both were declared dead under Belgian law at the end of 1942.

The fate of the relatives
The following is known about Richard Glückstadt's parents and their seven children: The father, Joseph Moritz Glückstadt (born October 20, 1853 in Hamburg), ran a store in Bergstraße in 1879 selling gallantry, haberdashery and pipe goods and picture postcards. In the 1890s, the business name was then "M. Glückstadt and A. Münden", as his brother-in-law Anton Münden (born July 8, 1867, biography see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de) had become co-owner in the meantime. They ran a photo studio in Wexstraße and produced picture postcards. As an active member of the Jewish community, Moritz Glückstadt was a board member of the Elbstraße Synagogue. After his death in 1921, Anton Münden continued to run the business alone.

Moritz's wife and Richard Glückstadt's mother was Rosa Glückstadt, née Münden (born July 21, 1868 in Hamburg). The couple had married in Hamburg in August 1886. After her husband's death, she received contractually guaranteed payments from the business, which her brother Anton Münden continued to run, until her death in 1936. Her son Richard also ensured from Brussels that his mother received monthly payments from his emigration savings. Rosa Glückstadt, who became a widow at an early age, is described as a self-confident woman who lived with her large family and many grandchildren in Hamburg's Grindel district, at Dillstraße 16, and saw her children gradually leave Germany in the last years of her life.
She died in 1936 at Hallerstraße 8.
Moritz and Rosa Glückstadt lived at Wexstraße 35 for a long time, then moved to Karolinenstraße, Rappstraße and Dillstraße. The fate of the eldest son Richard has already been reported in detail at the beginning. Like Richard, the second eldest son Siegfried (1889 -1918) was enlisted as a soldier in the First World War, but was reported missing in action in 1918.

Daniel Glückstadt (1894 -1977) survived the Nazi regime. He also had completed a commercial apprenticeship, then took part in the First World War as a soldier, which he survived as a radio operator and military cook. From 1926, he prepared kosher meals on the ship "Albert Ballin" and was able to flee the Nazi regime with his wife and children to the British Mandate of Palestine. He died in Israel in 1977.
Daniel's twin brother Gustav Glückstadt (1894-1954) was also trained as a merchant and also took part in the First World War. He emigrated to Guayaquil/Ecuador with his second wife. He died there in 1954 from a tropical disease.

Joseph Glückstadt (1891-1893) died of cholera as a child.

Leo Glückstadt (1896-1960) completed a banking apprenticeship and worked as an authorized signatory in his brother Richard's business from 1919. In 1923, he became a partner in Richard Glückstadt's banking business. He emigrated to Antwerp with his wife and two daughters in 1933 and was interned in the St. Cyprien camp after the invasion of Belgium by the German Wehrmacht. With the help of his brother Gustav, he was able to emigrate to the USA via Portugal and built up a new life there. He died in Miami in 1960. His wife Meta and both daughters emigrated to Israel, where Meta lived until 1993.

After the 6 boys in the Glückstadt family, the only daughter Johanna Glückstadt (1898-1996) was born. She attended the secondary school for girls in Hamburg in Bieberstraße and stayed at home after nine years of school to support her mother, who was weakened by a serious illness. In 1923, she married Ernst Bundheim (biography see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de) , with whom she had five children. In 1939, the family fled Hamburg to Belgium to escape the Nazi regime. Johanna and her children survived in various French camps, but her husband remained missing. She and her children found a new home in Israel, where she died at almost 100 years of age.

Fanny Glückstadt's (née Levy) family members were also persecuted by the Nazi regime.
According to the Hamburg address book, Moses and Henriette Levy lived at Klosterallee 9 from 1897 and then at Isestraße 119 from 1920. Fanny's father, Moses Levy (born January 19, 1860 in Wiesbaden), was initially employed by his father Wolf Levy's company and from 1910 by the company F. Thiele & Co (men's clothing) until he became managing director of Graul, Herrenkleidung am Alten Wall, from 1931 to 1933. Her mother, Henriette Levy, née Adler, was born in London on August 3, 1868. In January 1934, Fanny's parents emigrated to Brussels-Schaerbeek, where their daughter and family had already found a new home. From Brussels, Moses Levy attempted to transfer some of his assets via his Hamburg bank and a lawyer. The correspondence documents that he was still trying to save money until 1937. Henriette Levy died in Brussels on April 15, 1935. Moses Levy died on February 28, 1939 in Brussels-Schaerbeek.

Fanny Glückstadt had two older brothers.

Theodor Levy (born May 13, 1891), a clerk by profession, initially worked in Berlin after attending the Johanneum in Hamburg. After the First World War, he lived in Berlin again until he was employed by Kruse, Hess & Co in Hamburg in 1923.
He emigrated to Brussels in 1933 and, like the Glückstadt family, lived in Brussels-Schaerbeek with his parents, who had found a new home near their daughter and son-in-law in Schaerbeek. After the German occupation of Belgium, he was arrested in Brussels and deported to France, where he suffered through various internment camps. He was interned in Camp de Gurs at the same time as Manfred Glückstadt. From there, he was taken to Camp Les Milles in March 1941, where he managed to reach Havana via Marseille at the end of 1941. His new home eventually became Quito in Ecuador.

The second brother, Otto Nathan Levy (born 31 May 1892), had lived in Mainzlar near Giessen since 1927, where he was employed as a forced laborer in 1940. According to the files of the Hamburg Chief Financial Administration, in which his father's efforts to obtain financial settlements from Brussels are documented, Otto is said to have been mentally disturbed by the events of the war. He was therefore dependent on his father's financial support. This maintenance obligation was arranged from Brussels and paid out via Otto's Hamburg guardian to Mainzlar, where Otto was housed "in the country" according to the file. He last lived in Mainzlar in the so-called "ghetto house", was then taken to Darmstadt via Giessen in 1942 and deported from there on September 14, 1942, presumably to the Treblinka extermination camp.
He was declared dead by order of the Giessen district court at the request of his brother Theodor. A Stumbling Stone was laid for Otto Levy in Mainzlar.

Stand: April 2025
© Ursula Mühler

Quellen: 1; 2; 4; 5; Staatsarchiv Hamburg: Zivil- und Strafgerichtsbarkeit 213-13 6158,6159, 6160; Personenstand 332-5 2154, 2698, 8064, 8740, 9097; Wiedergutmachung 351-11 1357, 15926, 16571, 19508, 43808, 45027, 47752; Hamburger Adressbücher; Auskünfte und Dokumente von Archiven: Archives generales du Royaume/Service Archives des Victimes de la Guerre (29.11.24 und 14.1.25); Research Centre Kazerne Dossin, (24.8.24 und 17.1.25); Archiv Staufenberg (13.11.24); Stadtarchiv Wiesbaden (5.2.25); Arolsen Archives (8.4.24 und 6.1.25); Nathan Ben-Brith: Mein Gedächtnis nimmt es so wahr. Erinnerungen an den Holocaust. Bearb. u. mit einem Nachwort von Inge Grolle, Wallstein Verl. 2015; Christian Eggers: Unerwünschte Ausländer. Juden aus Deutschland und Mitteleuropa in französischen Internierungslagern 1940-1942, Berlin 2002; Jürgen Sielemann: Nachforschungen über die Verfolgung jüdischer ETV- Mitglieder in der NS-Zeit, in Sonderheft ETV-Magazin 2010; Schriftliche Auskunft des Enkels, Richard Glukstad, E-Mails vom 4.2.2025 und 11.2.2025; https://kops.uni-konstanz.de/server/api/core/bitstreams/a3af4cbb-2f26-4c37-931d-e49255167462/content (S. 30-36).
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