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Louis Nathan Levy * 1890

Brahmsallee 8 (Eimsbüttel, Harvestehude)

1941 Minsk
ermordet

further stumbling stones in Brahmsallee 8:
Johanna Bernstein, Victor Cohn, Thekla Cohn, Else Levy, Dr. Joseph Norden, Anna Rothenberg

Louis Nathan Levy, born 24 Jan. 1890 in Altona, Hamburg, deported 8 Nov. 1941 to Minsk
Elsa Sarah Levy, née Heynssen, born 3 May 1891 in Hamburg, deported 8 Nov. 1941 to Minsk

Brahmsallee 8

Louis Nathan Levy grew up in Altona with seven siblings. His father the cattle trader Nathan Behrend Levy, born in Friedrichstadt in 1855, had moved to Altona in 1884 and it was there that same year that he married Florette Cronheim, a merchant’s daughter born in Hamburg in 1857. In 1905 the family moved from Altona to Hamburg where Louis Nathan’s father died on 21 Jan. 1909. His mother died on 5 May 1935.
Louis Nathan Levy completed commercial training and took a job in the company of the cigar importer Bernhard Heynssen. He married his daughter Else Sarah in 1919. During the subsequent period, both worked for the company as authorized representatives. They did not have any children.

After Heynssen’s death on 4 Aug. 1922, Louis Nathan Levy took over the business as sole owner. In 1926, the import business encountered difficulties. While he was able to avoid declaring bankruptcy, Louis Nathan Levy was forced to earn a living as a travelling salesman.

His widowed mother-in-law Bertha Heynssen, née Salomon, born in Friedrichstadt in 1866, was forced to live off of welfare payments as of 1926. A report drawn up by a social worker after visiting the household in Sept. 1932 not only reveals Bertha Heynssen’s own plight but also that of her daughter and son-in-law:
"She [Bertha Heynssen] moved out of her daughter’s home at Schlüterstraße 54 to make it possible for her daughter Mrs. [Else Sarah] Levy to rent out a second room, which is also why Mrs. H.[eynssen] left her furniture in the old apartment. Yet she continued to eat and drink at her daughter’s home. However her daughter wants to give up the apartment on Schlüterstraße because she can’t raise the money to pay the rent.”

A little while later, Louis Nathan Levy and his wife moved to a ground floor apartment in the building at Brahmsallee 8. They would move a further five times within Hamburg before boarding the transport to Minsk on 8 Nov. 1941 that would take them to their death.

Else Sarah Levy’s mother Bertha Heynssen was deported from the retirement home at Laufgraben 37 to Thersienstadt on 24 Mar. 1943 where she perished on 10 Apr. 1943.


Translator: Suzanne von Engelhardt
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.


Stand: September 2019
© Jürgen Sielemann

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 7; 8; StaH, 342-2 Militär-Ersatzbehörden, D II 140 Bd. VII, 231-7 Amtsgericht Hamburg – Handels- und Genossenschaftsregister, 1955-257 (B. Heynssen); 351-14 Arbeits- und Sozialfürsorge – Sonderakten; 1287, 332-8 Meldewesen, A 33/4, Mikrofilm K 7333 (Nathan Behrend Levy), 552-1 Jüdische Gemeinden, 160, S. 22; 332-5 Standesämter, 6262, Nr. 298, 8728, Nr. 163; 2, J 2 Bd. 2, 512.
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