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Abraham Freimann * 1862

Dillstraße 21 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

HIER WOHNTE
ABRAHAM FREIMANN
JG. 1862
DEPORTIERT 1942
THERESIENSTADT
ERMORDET 16.11.1942

further stumbling stones in Dillstraße 21:
Bertha Berges, Charlotte Berges, Marianna Berges, Emma Blitz, Herbert Cohen, Karl Gänser, Julius Gottschalk, Minna Gottschalk, Hermann Samuel Gottschalk, Ernst August Gottschalk, Karola Gottschalk, Erwin Levinson, Flora Levinson, Hugo Levinson, Bert(h)a Seligmann

Abraham Freimann, born on 3 Feb. 1862 in Wonsosch (today Wasosz in Poland), deported to Theresienstadt on 19 July 1942, died there on 16 Nov. 1942

Dillstrasse 21

Abraham Juschk Freimann was born on 3 Feb. 1862 in Prussian Wonsosch (Wasosz) as the son of Jossel and Maridsch Freimann. We know nothing about his childhood, youth, and education.

On 26 June 1884, he married Reislja Rose, née Suwalski (born on 26 Jan. 1867) in Lomza. Her parents were Izek-Eliasch (Herschko) Suwalski and Sora Schliom, who both resided in Lomza.

The Freimann couple had seven children: the oldest daughter Golda Elka (born on 27 Feb. 1891), the first twins Scheel and Berta (on 15 Aug. 1896), the second twins Lea and Frida (on 13 Jan. 1903), Hermann (on 13 Nov. 1909), and the youngest daughter Mirjam (on 1 Mar. 1911). The three oldest children were born in Poland, while the other four children were born in Hamburg.

The Freimann family lived in Hamburg since 1900. Since 1901, Abraham served there as a religious official of the German-Israelite Synagogue Association (Synagogenverband): He worked as a kosher slaughterer (shochet, Schächter) until the ban on kosher butchering (shechita) in 1933. (Shechita is the ritual slaughter of kosher animals according to the Torah rules in order to obtain kosher meat. On 1 May 1933, the "Law on the Slaughtering of Animals” (Gesetz über das Schlachten von Tieren) came into force, which required that warm-blooded animals be stunned before slaughter. However, since only the meat of an animal not anesthetized is considered kosher, the law automatically led to a ban on the profession of kosher butchers.) Abraham retired in 1939.

Until 1911, Abraham lived with his family at Bornstrasse 7; until 1933 at Rutschbahn 24, and from 1933 until 2 Sept. 1941 as an tenant of a six-room apartment at Dillstrasse 21. As of 3 Sept. 1941, he had to leave his apartment on Dillstrasse and lived with interruptions in forcibly assigned accommodations. His last involuntary address until 18 July 1942 was a so-called "Jews’ house” ("Judenhaus”) at Rutschbahn 25a. His wife Reislja also had to spend her last days in a "Jews’ house” at Johnsallee 54. There she died of a stroke on 12 July 1941. She was buried in the Ohlsdorf Jewish Cemetery.

Abraham was deported on 19 July 1942 from Hamburg to Theresienstadt on Transport VI/2. He arrived there on 20 July 1942 along with 750 other Hamburg residents.

Abraham Freimann died in Theresienstadt on 16 Nov. 1942. In the death notice, the Jewish physicians indicated marasmus senilis (infirmity of old age) as the cause of death.

What happened to his family? The oldest daughter of Abraham and Reislja, Golda Elka (Elise), was born on 27 Feb. 1891 in Lomza. On 25 June 1917, she had married in Hamburg Abraham Albert Majer Pasmanik (born on 17 Oct. 1889), a merchant and accountant and native of Lomza as well. They had three children together: Klara Vreba, née Pasmanik (born on 19 May 1920), Felix Pasmanik (born in 1923), and Susi Pasmanik (born on 21 Aug. 1928). They were born in the administrative district of Hindenburg/Upper Silesia, where the family lived until they moved to Hamburg. In the course of the so-called "Polen-Aktion,” the expulsion of Polish Jews, Elka, her husband, and their youngest daughter Susi were transported to Poland on 29 Oct. 1938. During the "Polen-Aktion,” 17,000 Jews who had immigrated from Poland were deported in an operation by force on Heinrich Himmler’s orders. From this moment onward, there is no longer any trace of Elka, Albert, and Susi. All investigations were unsuccessful, so that they were declared dead after the end of the war. Only the oldest daughter Klara survived; she was mentioned in 1959 as the only granddaughter as heir of Abraham Freimann, and at the time she resided in Tel Aviv.

Berta (Beila Rochia/Feiga) and her twin brother Scheel (Schoul) were born on 15 Aug. 1896 in Kolno. Berta married Bernhard Levy in Hamburg on 20 Nov. 1923. She probably emigrated to Palestine in 1938, where she lived in Tel Aviv.

Her brother Scheel attended the Talmud Tora Realschule in Hamburg and learned the carpentry trade. From 1926 to 1933, he owned a textile shop at Rutschbahn 24. After that, he ran a textile shop at Marktstrasse 2, which he had to give up because of the boycott against Jews in 1936.

On 29 Oct. 1938, Scheel, like his sister Elka, was deported to Poland and had to spend until 11 Dec. 1938 in a camp in Zbaszyn. Under dreadful conditions, the persons whom the Polish government did not allow to move on because they lacked the right of residence in Poland were accommodated there. Scheel was one of those allowed to return to Hamburg to settle their affairs. On 14 Dec. 1938, he went aboard the SS Manhattan en route to New York, where he arrived on 21 Dec. 1938. In the USA, he called himself Saul Freeman and lived from 1939 to 1941 in Council Bluffs and Sioux City, Iowa. From 1941 to 1947, Saul moved to Chicago and then to New York, where he was the owner of a candy store. On 21 Sept. 1947, he married Frima Frenkel in New York. Saul died there of coronary sclerosis on 4 Oct. 1977.

Of the twins Lea and Frida, Lea emigrated in 1936 to Palestine, where she lived in Tel Aviv. She suffered from severe depression.

Her sister Frida was employed by the Norddeutsche Spitzen-Manufaktur S. Levy Söhne, a lace manufacturer based at Hansastrasse 65, from 1 July 1924 to 31 July 1938. She worked for the company as a private secretary and export traveler, managed most of the Hamburg branch independently, handled the company’s tax affairs, and traveled to Sweden as a representative to acquire new customers. She was dismissed because of the "Aryanization” of the company. On 10 Nov. 1938, Frida was stopped on the street by Gestapo officers and taken to the Holstentor police prison together with ten other women. She was held there for two days. In Mar. 1939, she left for Palestine, but due to her unemployment there, she went to Britain in Aug. 1939, where she could earn money as a salaried employee. In Dec. 1946, she returned to Tel Aviv. She married one Mr. Marcus, but separated from him again. Frida died on 12 June 1972.

Hermann passed the school-leaving examination (Reifeprüfung) at the Thaer-Oberrealschule just outside the Holstentor at Easter 1928 and began to study dentistry at the University of Hamburg. On 29 Jan. 1932, he passed the dentistry state examination and a short time later, he also obtained his doctorate. From Jan. 1932 onward, Hermann first worked as an independent representative for the dentist Erika Polster at Gosslerstrasse 10 and then as an assistant and representative for the dentist Erich Popper at Süderstrasse 83. On 30 Mar. 1933, Hermann fled without any luggage to Scheveningen, The Hague, to stay with Josef Perlmann, a good acquaintance from Hamburg. From there, he emigrated to Palestine in May 1935, where he lived in a kibbutz in the village of Kfar Witkin. In 1936, he married Elfriede Löbl (born on 26 Nov. 1911). The couple had a daughter in 1937, and their son Shmuel was born on 1 Apr. 1943. In 1939, Hermann moved with his wife and little daughter to Nahalal. In 1945, he moved to Petah Tikva and founded his own dental practice.

The youngest daughter Mirjam Sara attended the Israelite girls’ secondary school on Karolinenstrasse from 1917 to 1927. She then trained as a goldsmith at the Lerchenfeld School of Arts and Crafts in Hamburg. She initially worked for one year as a volunteer at the Weisel goldsmith’s workshop on Steindamm, and from 1931 to 1933, at the B. Griegst silversmith’s workshop in Copenhagen. In 1933, Mirjam went to Britain, where she was employed as a maid in Newcastle upon Tyne. At the end of Aug. 1935, she emigrated to Palestine. There she worked as a farm worker until 1944, served in the women’s auxiliary corps of the British Army between 1944 and 1946, and starting in 1949, she worked as an auxiliary nurse in the massage department of the general statutory health insurance in Haifa. In 1958, Mirjam fell ill with breast cancer. She died in Petah Tikva on 14 Dec. 1959.

Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: February 2021
© Solveig Bünz

Quellen: 1; 3; 4; 8; StaH 351-11 (AfW), 739 (Abraham Freimann); StaH 351-11 (AfW), 18551 (Saul Freeman); StaH 351-11 (AfW), 27201 (Frida Marcus, geb. Freimann); StaH 351-11 (AfW), 34612 (Dr. Hermann Freimann); StaH 351-11 (AfW), 36303 (Mirjam Freimann); StaH 213-13 (Landgericht Hamburg – Wiedergutmachung), 937 (Lea Freimann); StaH 522-1 (Jüdische Gemeinden), 992e1 Band 7 (Deportationslisten); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 14005 (Geburten 1903); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 8780 (Heiraten 1923); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 8716 (Heiraten 1917); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 1137 (Sterbefälle 1941): StaH 314-15 (Gestapoliste), 24 UA 7; Hamburger Adressbücher (1903–1943); Städtisches Museum in Zabrze (Elka Elise Pasmanik, geb. Freimann); Passagierlisten SS Manhattan (Scheel Freimann); e-mail Nora Jean Levin/Washington DC v. 2.2.2021.
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