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Flora Buttermann (née Seelig) * 1896

Ausschläger Weg 9 (Hamburg-Mitte, Borgfelde)

HIER WOHNTE
FLORA BUTTERMANN
GEB. SEELIG
JG. 1896
DEPORTIERT 1941
MINSK
ERMORDET

further stumbling stones in Ausschläger Weg 9:
Leon Buttermann

Flora Buttermann, née Selig, born 26 Apr. 1896 in Friedrichstadt on the Eider, deported 8 Nov. 1941 to Minsk
Leon Buttermann, born 12 Feb. 1899 in Mistek, Moravia, deported 8 Nov. 1941 to Minsk

Ausschlägerweg 9/Bornstraße 7

Leon Buttermann’s father owned an estate in Moravia, his mother was from Berlin. He grew up in Mistek in Moravia. Flora Buttermann, née Selig, came from Friedrichstadt in Schleswig-Holstein. It is not known how they came to Hamburg, where they married in 1929.

Leon Buttermann’s father Moses, who later called himself Moritz, was born on 8 March 1872 in Radlna, Moravia. After the dissolution of the Habsburg Empire, he moved with his wife and three children to Hamburg. His wife Dorothea, née Jottkowitz was born on 2 July 1875 in Berlin, and the three children Leon, Else (*20 April 1900), and Dina (*17 Nov. 1902) were born in Mistek, Moravia. Moses and Dorothea had married on 16 November 1897 in Beuthen, Upper Silesia, where her parents, Markus and Goldine Jottkowitz, lived until their deaths.

When the family joined the Hamburg German-Israelitic Community, they were members of the conservative New Dammtor Synagogue, but later left it. In 1937 Moses Butterman changed his membership to the Orthodox Synagogue Association.

Moses Buttermann worked as a plumber and mechanic. The family’s income rarely rose above the tax-exempt level. Leon Butterman first worked in the offices of a private company in Hamburg-Wilhelmsburg, then with the Hamburger Hochbahn AG (the public transport agency). In 1921 he was listed as an independent member of the Hamburg German-Israelitic Community. He lived with his parents and sisters on Grindelallee. In 1926 Dina Buttermann married a man named Hensel in Berlin. He was evidently non-Jewish.

Leon Buttermann’s wife Flora was born on 26 April 1986 as the second of four children to Jacob Selig and his wife Caroline, née Josias, in Friedrichstadt. Her brother Isidor and his wife Lina, née Schöntal, lived in Hamburg with their sons Werner and Ernst. Flora’s parents also eventually moved to Hamburg. All that is known about her brothers David (*1899) and Herbert (*1902) is that Herbert was deported from Freidrichstadt and did not survive the Shoah. The date and destination of his deportation is unknown.

Leon and Flora Buttermann moved to Ausschlägerweg 9 in Hamburg-Borgfelde. They had no children. They left New Dammtor Synagogue, but their new place of worship is unknown. Leon lost his job in 1935, but soon found a new one.

On 2 November 1939, Else Buttermann married Siegbert Borower (*21 July 1891) from Kempen in the Allgäu region. After he lost his job as a businessman, he earned a living as a pianist. He emigrated to Shanghai six months after the wedding, in May 1940.

In 1940 Leon Buttermann was conscripted to forced labor as a stoker. This brought a steady but minimal income. Flora and Leon gave up their apartment in Borgfelde and moved to Osterbrook 57 in Hamburg-Hamm, until they were forced to relocate to the Grindel quarter when residential repressive measures against Jews were put in place.

The "Jewish Religious Association” housed Leon’s parents Moses and Dorothea Buttermann first at Schlachterstraße 46/47 in Hamburg-Neustadt, then separated them, sending one to a home for the elderly at Grünestraße 5 in Altona, the other to the "Jews’ House” at Schlachterstraße 40/42. Dorothea died of a brain embolism on 16 December 1941 at the Israelitic Hopsital, which at that time was on Johnsalle, aged 66. Moses Butterman died of natural causes a few weeks later, on 8 January 1942, aged 70, in his accommodations in the Nordheim Home.

At some point, Leon Buttermann became stateless. There is no corresponding entry for his parents. When Leon and Flora received their "evacuation orders” from the Gestapo, they lived at Bornstraße 7a. Flora’s brother Isidor Selig and his family, whose plans to emigrate had fallen through, were also notified that they were to aid with the "development of the Eastern regions.” Leon and Flora Buttermann and Isidor, Lina, Werner, and Ernst Selig were deported to the Minsk ghetto on 8 November 1841. Leon’s sister Else Borower followed ten days later; Flora’s sister Dina Hensel was deported from Berlin to Auschwitz. None of them survived the so-called "work assignment.”

Flora’s parents Jacob and Caroline Selig remained in Hamburg in a home for the elderly, which had been established by the Jewish Community in the former Paulinenstift at Laufgraben 37. Caroline Selig died there on 15 March 1943 of a heart attack. Jacob Selig was deported to the "ghetto for the elderly,” as Theresienstadt was called, on 9 June 1943. He died three months later, on 12 September 1943.

Translator: Amy Lee
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; StaH, 332-5 Standesämter, (StA 2a) 8174+443/1941; (StA 3a) 1152+20/1942; (StA 2a) 8187+71/1943; 552-1 Jüdische Gemeinden, 992 e 2, Bd. 2.
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