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Anna Rothenberg (née Hiller) * 1892

Brahmsallee 8 (Eimsbüttel, Harvestehude)

ermordet

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

Anna Rothenberg, née Hiller, born 14 Apr. 1892 in Mußbach an der Weinstraße (Rhineland-Palatinate), deported 13 June 1942 from Berlin to Sobibor

Brahmsallee 8

Anna Hiller was born in present-day Rhineland-Palatinate in 1892 to the wine and spirits merchant Isaac Hiller (born 5 July 1855 in Mußbach) and his wife Isabella, née Mayer. The family lived in Mußbach on Hauptstraße (around 1891) and on Wolffenstraße (around 1896). The Mußbach Address Book of 1891 lists two other spirits dealers: Heinrich Hiller (Marktplatz) and Sigmund Hiller (Sinmeldingerstraße). It can be assumed that they were family members. In 1898 Isaac and Isabella Hiller moved their family to Neustadt an der Weinstraße, where Hiller opened a spirits shop at Moltkestraße 3. Anna had six sisters: Johanna/Jenny (born 1886), Helena (born 1887), Elisabeth/Elsa (born 1893), Emma (born 1895), Ida Paula (born 1898), and Hedwig (born 1901). Three other sisters died in infancy. We do not know anything about Anna's schooling or any professional training.

Anna Hiller married Siegfried Rothenberg. They apparently had no children. Rothenberg (born 24 Aug. 1881 in Nuremberg) was the son of the merchant Emil Rothenberg (1853–1934) and his wife Fanny, née Karpf (1858–1913). After finishing his studies in 1908 with a dissertation titled "The historical Portrayal of the Development of the Theory of Differential Equations of the first Degree with two variable Terms,” he became a teacher.

In the early 1930s, the couple lived in Ludwigshafen at Lisztstraße 176. Siegfried Rothenberg taught at the classical secondary school (present-day Theodor-Heuss-Gymnasium), very near to his wife’s hometown. The Law for the Reconstitution of the Civil Service, which allowed the Nazi regime to forcibly retire or dismiss Jewish or otherwise undesirable civil servants, was passed on 7 Apr. 1933, but Siegfried Rothenberg was not immediately removed from his position. That didn’t happen until 1934, when a new school director was hired, who forced the dismissal of all teachers of Jewish heritage. On 21 Oct. 1934, Siegfried Rothenberg, who was already in poor health, was forced into retirement.

The couple then lived briefly in Berlin, then moved to Hamburg in July 1936, where they rented rooms in a ground floor apartment at Brahmsallee 8 from the auditor Elias Schragenheim (1864–1939) and his wife Clara, née Enoch (1868, Hanover–1940). Louis Nathan Levy also lived in the other ground-floor apartment, where he also had the offices for his business, a cigar warehouse called B. Heynssen. The second floor apartments were rented by Lili Sokolowski, widow of a lieutenant colonel, and the retired first lieutenant Karl Wilhelm Paarmann. On the third floor lived the retired Army captain Georg von Thiele and the widow M. Heckscher, who owned the export agency Dörner & Röltgen. The apartments of the writer H. Landrock and the professor Dr. Friedrich Augustin were on the fourth floor, and on the top floor lived the merchant Richard Böcker and widow Anna Stielau. Herr Cords, a truck driver, lived in the basement.

It is possible that the couple had personal friends in Hamburg. Gertrud Alsberg, née Feiss (born 15 Jan. 1895), who was also from Mußbach, lived at Werderstraße 75, just a block over from Brahmsallee. She was deported to the Thereseienstadt Ghetto on 15 July 1942.

In late July or early August 1936, the Rothenbergs returned to Berlin-Wilmersdorf. The reasons for their short stay in Hamburg are unknown. The couple from whom they rented their apartment in Hamburg moved to Hallerstraße 24 in July 1938, where, according to tax records, Elias Schragenheim died on 20 Sep. 1939, and Clara Schragenheim on 1 Sep. 1940.

Siegfried and Anna Rothenberg lived until at least 1941 at Bechstedter Weg 11 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf. The building in which they lived had been built in 1929–30 by the Hohenzollerndamm-Wohnungen company as part of a residential complex. The four- to five-floor buildings had large 2½- and 4½-room apartments.

In December 1938, the head of the Employment Administration, Friedrich Syrup, had issued Reich-wide guidelines for the forced labor of Jews in special units. The local employment agencies assigned the tasks, and reported supposed "work-shy” individuals. On 22 August 1941, Siegfried Rothenberg applied for permission to emigrate, but it was too late, since the Nazi regime had changed its policy from exiling to deporting Jews. In addition, Jews’ finances had been frozen, and the number of entry visas to other countries had been massively reduced due to the war. Siegfried Rothenberg was supposedly enlisted to forced labor in Berlin in 1941/42.

On 13 July 1942, the Rothenbergs were deported from Berlin to the Sobibor extermination camp in occupied Poand. At least 250,000 people were murdered there between April 1942 and the fall of 1943. Anna and Siegfred Rothenberg were among the victims. At the end of 1943, the camp was demolished in order to destroy the evidence of mass murder.

A Stolperstein was placed for Anna Rothenberg in 2007, who only lived in Hamburg for a few weeks.

Her sister Johanna’s last address was at Hildastraße 57 in Freiburg in Briesgau. She and her husband Sigmund Lay (1860–1941) from Freiburg were deported on 22 Oct. 1940 to the Gurs Internment Camp near the Pyrenees in Vichy France, where Sigmund died on 1 Mar. 1941. In November 1942 Vichy France was occupied by the Wehrmacht. Johanna Lay was transferred to the Auschwitz extermination camp. The dates of her deportation and death are not known. She was declared dead in 1948, with the 15 Oct. 1944 as the date of death. Stolpersteine for Johanna and Sigmund Lay were placed in at Hildastraße 57 Freiburg in Briesgau.

Anna’s sister Elisabeth and her husband Adolf Mayer (1890–1944) lived in Cologne. They were deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto on 27 July 1942, where Adolf Mayer died in January 1944. Elisabeth was transferred to the Auschwitz extermination camp on 23 Jan. 1943. Her sister Hedwig, who had lived in Aurich from 1931 to 1940 and in Berlin from 1940 to 1942, was on the same transport. A Stolperstein was placed for Hedwig Hiller in Aurich.

Anna’s sister-in-law Johanna (Hannchen) Weiß, née Rothenberg (born 10 Mar. 1886 in Nuremberg), was deported on 24 Mar. 1942 from Nuremberg to the transit camp and ghetto Ibica in occupied Poland. From there the deportees were taken to the nearby Belzec extermination camp. None of the 320 people deported on 24 Mar. 1942 survived.


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


Stand: September 2019
© Björn Eggert, Christina Igla

Quellen: StaH 522-1 (Jüdische Gemeinden), 992b (Kultussteuerkartei der Deutsch-Israelitischen Gemeinde Hamburg), Dr. Siegfried Rothenberg, Elias u. Clara Schragenheim, Ernst Alsberg; Archiv und Museum Neustadt an der Weinstraße (Adressbuch Mußbach 1891, 1896 u. Standesamtsunterlagen); Stadtarchiv Nürnberg, Meldekarte (Emil Rothenberg und Fanny Rothenberg, geb. Karpf); Stadtarchiv Freiburg/Breisgau, Einwohnermeldekarte (Johanna Lay, geb. Hiller); Yad Vashem, Page of Testimony (Siegfried Rothenberg); Bundesarchiv Koblenz, Gedenkbuch, Opfer der Verfolgung der Juden unter nationalsozialistischer Gewaltherrschaft in Deutschland 1933–1945, Internetseite, Hedwig Hiller, Johanna Jenny Lay geb. Hiller, Sigmund Lay, Adolf Mayer, Elisabeth Else Mayer geb. Hiller, Anna Rothenberg geb. Hiller, Siegfried Rothenberg, Johanna Weiß geb. Rothenberg; Berliner Bezirkslexikon, Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, Berlin 2005, S. 796 (Wohnanlage der Howo Bechstedter Weg); Gilbert, Endlösung, S. 48, 92, 96–97; Knigge (Hrsg.), Zwangsarbeit, S. 40 (Arbeitsämter); Staatsarchiv Hamburg, Hamburger jüdische Opfer; Adressbuch Berlin 1938, 1941 (Bechstedter Weg 11); Frankfurter Israelitisches Familienblatt, 28.12.1906 (Lehramtskandidat Siegfried Rothenberg erringt einen 1. Preis an der Technischen Hochschule München); https://stolpersteineaurich.wordpress.com/1012/06/26/hedwig-hiller/ (Stolperstein mit Biographie in Aurich für Hedwig Hiller, eingesehen 17.1.2016); Internet, Stolpersteine in Freiburg und Breisgau (Jenny u. Siegmund Lay).