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Therese Maier * 1921

Eimsbütteler Chaussee 39–45 (Eimsbüttel, Eimsbüttel)

HIER WOHNTE
THERESE MAIER
JG. 1921
EINGEWIESEN 1940
HEILANSTALT LANGENHORN
"VERLEGT" 23.9.1940
BRANDENBURG
ERMORDET 23.9.1940
"AKTION T4"

further stumbling stones in Eimsbütteler Chaussee 39–45:
Emma Maier, Josef Maier, Ella Maier, Hugo Maier

Ella Maier (Mayer), born on 21 June 1926 in Hamburg, deported to Minsk on 6 Dec. 1941
Emma Maier (Mayer), née Renner, born on 19 March 1891 in Krummendorf, deported to Minsk on 8 Nov. 1941
Hugo Maier (Mayer), born on 15 Sep. 1923 in Hamburg, deported to Minsk on 8 Nov. 1941
Josef Maier (Mayer), born on 13 March 1890 in Pflaumheim, deported to Minsk on 8 Nov. 1941
Therese Maier (Mayer), born on 19 July 1921 in Hamburg, murdered on 23 Sep. 1940 in the Killing Centre Brandenburg

Eimsbütteler Chaussee 45, Eimsbüttel

Therese Maier was born in the Israelite Hospital in Hamburg on 19 July 1921. Her parents, the worker Josef Maier, and his wife Emma, née Renner, lived at that time in Hamburg-Altstadt, Reimerstrasse 3-4. The couple married on 22 Jan. 1921. In the marriage certificate the first name of Josef Maier, who had moved to Hamburg in 1917, was still written as "Joseph”. In Therese`s birth certificate her family name was written as "Mayer”. Through a ruling of the Hamburg District Court on 25 May 1956, the spelling of their family name and that of her siblings and parents was changed to "Maier”. By the same ruling, the first name of her father was changed from "Joseph” to "Josef”. Through this, the spelling was restored to the original version used in Josef Maier`s birth certificate.

Therese`s mother, born on 19 March 1891, came from Krummendorf near Stade, her father Josef, born on 13 March 1890, from Pflaumheim near Aschaffenburg. Therese`s birth certificate contains no reference to the religious affiliation of her father and mother. This could be due to the fact that Josef`s mother, who had Jewish parents, declared herself a catholic and his father declared himself as Jewish. Nevertheless, Josef and Emma Maier saw them themselves as belonging to the Jewish Community. In 1923, Josef Maier also paid religious tax.

Two years after Therese, her brother Hugo was born on 15 Sept. 1923. At this time, the family lived in St Pauli, Tatergang 6. According to the Hamburg address book of 1925, the street got its name because it was a "walkway frequently used by gypsies (Tatern)”. Nowadays it is part of the Pinnasberg street. The birth of Ella Maier followed on 21 June 1926. In 1931, the family moved their residence to Eimsbütteler Chaussee 45, house no 3 in the Eimsbüttel district. They lived there until 1941.

From the still existing welfare file we know that the family was getting worse and worse from the end of 1933. Josef Maier was unfit for work as a result of a paralysis of one side of his body. The family was dependent on state welfare support. Occasionally they received benefits from the Jewish Community.

Notwithstanding his physical limitations, Josef Maier had to do so called support work in various places in 1937, for example in the Waltershof district. Support or compulsory labour was imposed upon unemployed men and women who received unemployment or welfare benefits. Jews in particular were allocated to the heaviest excavation work. In Waltershof, the men had to lay out sports and playgrounds for the local day-care colony ("Kindertages-Kolonie”) on a muddy field and an allotment garden area.

Ella Maier, the youngest child of the Maier couple, attended the Girls’ school of the German-Israelite Community. Hugo Maier, who aspired to a gardener training, could not find an apprenticeship place as a Jew. Therefore, in 1938, the Jewish Community gave him a training place in the Settlers School Wilhelminenhöhe, Blankenese, a Hachschara camp.
Therese Maier was the "problem child” of the family.

She could neither speak nor hear and suffered from an eye defect that required surgery. In 1937 she lost her job as a domestic servant. Her mother`s hope that she would find a new job was not fulfilled. From spring 1938, Emma Maier experienced big difficulties with her daughter whom she characterized as being "difficult to bring up”. Allegedly Therese developed into a "prowler". The behavior of the 17-year-old girl became so acute that Emma Maier turned to the Youth Welfare Office for help. Therese was taken out of the family and committed to the Farmsen Care Home (Versorgungsheim). She remained there for the next two years.

In spring/summer of 1940, the "Euthanasia” central office in Berlin, Tiergartenstrasse 4, planned a special operation against Jews in public and private Nursing and Care Homes. They had the Jews living there registered and transferred to so called Collection Homes. The Nursing and Care Home Hamburg-Langenhorn was designated as Collection Home for Northern Germany. All institutions in Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg were instructed to transfer all the Jews living in their establishments to Langenhorn by 18 Sept. 1940.

Therese Maier came from Farmsen to Langenhorn on 18 Sept. 1940. On 23 Sept. 1940, she was transferred to Brandenburg an der Havel together with a further 135 patients of both sexes from Northern German institutions. The transport reached the town in the Mark of Brandenburg on the same day. In the part of the former hard labour prison which had been converted into a centre for execution by gas, the patients were herded without delay into the gas chambers and murdered with Carbon Monoxide. Only Ilse Herta Zachmann temporarily escaped this fate (see entry on her).

It is not known whether and, if so, when her relatives were informed of Therese Maier`s death. In all the communications which have been documented, it was claimed that the person concerned had died in Chelm (Polish) or Cholm (German). However, the people murdered in Brandenburg had never been in Chelm/Cholm, to the East of Lublin. The former Polish nursing home did not exist any longer after SS Units had murdered nearly all the patients on 12 Jan. 1940. In addition, there was no German Registry Office in Chelm/Cholm. Its invention and the use of dates of death later than the real ones served to cover up the murders and, at the same time, to enable the claiming of maintenance costs for a correspondingly longer period of time.

Josef and Emma Maier as well as their children, Ella and Hugo, received the deportation order in November 1941. According to the death certificate of the Hamburg District Court of 30 Apr. 1954 they were deported to Minsk on 8 Nov. 1941. (The Remembrance Book of the Federal Archive describes Ella Maier as a deportee to Riga. This, however, cannot be documented. In the Declaration of Death, Minsk is given as the deportation destination for all but Therese).

With the murder of Therese Maier in Brandenburg and that of her parents and siblings, an entire family was wiped out.

In memory of Ella, Emma, Hugo, Josef and Therese Maier, stumbling stones have been laid at Hamburg-Eimsbüttel, Eimsbütteler Chausse 45.

Translator: Steve Robinson

Stand: May 2020
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 9; AB; StaH 133-1 III Staatsarchiv III, 3171-2/4 U.A. 4, Liste psychisch kranker jüdischer Patientinnen und Patienten der psychiatrischen Anstalt Langenhorn, die aufgrund nationalsozialistischer "Euthanasie"-Maßnahmen ermordet wurden, zusammengestellt von Peter von Rönn, Hamburg (Projektgruppe zur Erforschung des Schicksals psychisch Kranker in Langenhorn); 332-5 Standesämter Nr. 33/1921 Heiratsregister Joseph Mayer/Emma Renner; 351-14 Arbeits- und Sozialbehörde – Sonderakten - 47 UA3 Nr. 1515 Joseph Mayer; 351-12 I Amt für Wohlfahrtsanstalten (1871-1946) 19; 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn Abl. 1/1995 Aufnahme-/Abgangsbuch Langenhorn 26. 8. 1939 bis 27. 1. 1941; 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden 992 e 2 Deportationslisten; Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv, Standort Stade, Geburtsregister Krummendeich Nr. 122/1891 Emma Remmer; Standesamt Hmb.-Mitte Geburtsregister Nr. 457/1921 Therese Mayer (Maier); Standesamt Markt Großostheim/Pflaumheim (Bayern), Geburtsregister Nr. 5/1890 Joseph Mayer; Standesamt Markt Großostheim/Pflaumheim: Beschluss Amtsgericht Hamburg Az. 54 II 706-710-/52 vom 30. 4. 1954, Todeserklärung der Mitglieder der Familie Maier. Lohalm, Uwe, Fürsorge und Verfolgung. Öffentliche Wohlfahrtsverwaltung und nationalsozialistische Judenpolitik in Hamburg 1933 bis1942, Hamburg 1998, S. 35, 52.
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