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Hildegard Neumann * 1921

Alter Steinweg 13 (Hamburg-Mitte, Neustadt)

1942 Auschwitz ermordet 01.01.1943
1941 KZ Fuhlsbüttel

further stumbling stones in Alter Steinweg 13:
Leopold Freundlich, Adolf Richard Neumann, Moritz Neumann, Leo Neumann, Sally Neumann, Sophie Neumann, Johanna Neumann, Alfred Neumann

Adolf Richard Neumann, born 9 Oct. 1924 in Hamburg, killed 2 Nov. 1942 in Auschwitz
Alfred Neumann, born 15 Oct. 1912 in Hamburg, killed 30 Jan. 1943 in Auschwitz
Hildegard Adolphine Neumann, born 12 Apr. 1921 in Hamburg, killed 1 Jan. 1943 in Auschwitz
Johanna Neumann, born 28 Dec. 1905 in Hamburg, imprisoned in 1940 at Ravensbrück concentration camp, killed 23 Mar. 1942 at Bernburg killing center on the Saale River
Leo Neumann, born 12 Jan. 1920 in Hamburg, killed 14 Feb. 1943 in Auschwitz
Moritz Neumann, born 30 Mar. 1882 in Praust, imprisoned in 1941 at Fuhlsbüttel Prison, killed 1943 in Auschwitz
Sally Neumann, born 27 Apr. 1940 in Hamburg, deported 6 Dec. 1941 to Riga-Jungfernhof
Sophie Neumann, née London, born 5 Mar. 1886 in Lingen, deported 6 Dec. 1941 to Riga-Jungfernhof

Alter Steinweg 13 (Alter Steinweg 48)

Moritz Neumann and Sophie London were wed in Berlin-Kreuzberg on 31 Oct. 1904. Until then, Moritz had lived at Arndtstraße 20, Sophie with her parents in Hamburg’s Gänge district at Amidammachergang 44. Both came from working-class Jewish families with many children.

Moritz Neumann grew up in Kiel, the son of the cooper Lewin Neumann (born 29 Apr. 1859, died 19 Oct. 1919) and his wife Mathilde, née Lohde (born 30 July 1859, died 18 Dec. 1927). He had been born on 30 Mar. 1882 in Praust, Danzig (today Pruszcz Gdański, Poland), while his younger siblings were born in Kiel and Hamburg (see Siegfried Neumann and the Geistlich Family) where the family lived as of about 1899.

Sophie was born in Lingen, Ems, the daughter of Adolf London and Marianne, née Os. That was also where three of her siblings were born, her older brother Andreas (born 24 Jan. 1882), her sister Henriette (born 20 Jan. 1887, died 26 Oct. 1940 in Hamburg) and her brother Moritz (born 6 Oct. 1898, died 21 May 1959 in Trinidad, USA). Her younger siblings were born in Hamburg, Elise (born 26 Dec. 1895, died 22 June 1966), Ottilie (born 9 Sept. 1902, died 12 Aug. 1959 in Bad Pyrmont) and Lina (born 16 Jan. 1897). Sophie’s father Adolf London had also been born in the Hanseatic city on 7 Aug. 1858. He had worked in Lingen as a painter and varnisher for the railway. He was transferred to Harburg in 1891, then he gave up his job and became self-employed as a metal wares and products dealer in Hamburg’s Neustadt. Adolf London died on 13 Jan. 1919 on Graskeller in a streetcar. His widow Marianne London then lived at Schlachterstraße 46/47 House 3. She had been born on 26 Mar. 1861 in Den Ham, in the Dutch province Overijssel, and was said to have given birth to 24 children, but only the seven named above survived. Marianne London died on 19 Mar. 1922 at the age of 60 at the Israelite Hospital.

After their wedding, Sophie and Moritz Neumann lived in Neustadt, near their families, and had seven children, Johanna (born 28 Dec. 1904), Rudolf (born 7 Aug. 1907), Therese (born 6 Dec. 1909), Alfred (born 15 Oct. 1912), Leo (born 12 Jan. 1920), Hildegard Adolphine (born 12 Apr. 1921) and Adolf Richard (born 9 Oct. 1924).

The family belonged to the Jewish community in Hamburg but they did not pay any dues because they earned so little money. Moritz Neumann worked for many years as a metal worker in the shipyard Blohm & Voss. From 1915 to 1918 he fought in World War I and received the Hanseatic Cross as a distinction. During the world economic crisis, he was only able to earn money in temporary jobs as a dockworker. In the intervening periods he was unemployed and forced to rely on support from the welfare office. As of 1927, the Hamburg address book listed him as a dockworker living at Alten Steinweg 48. In early 1938 the Neumann Family moved to Langengang 25. At that time, he worked as mason – part-time due to an eye ailment – but only earned a small amount. As a welfare recipient, he was obliged to work for an underground construction company in Wandsbek. His wife Sophie had worked as a salesperson before their marriage but was unable to continue in that line of work later on because she was so hard of hearing.

Their children attended Jewish schools. They had to become independent at an early age and earn money as soon as they were done with school. Their eldest son Rudolf, nicknamed Rudi, worked as an electrician and was active in the labor movement. He met his future wife Flora Andrade (born 23 Feb. 1911) at a meeting of the Young Jewish Workers. They were married on 8 Sept. 1931 in the synagogue at Bornplatz.

When the National Socialists assumed power, they began marginalizing and persecuting politically and "racially” undesirable people. In 1933 Rudolf Neumann was taken into "protective custody” as an anti-fascist. After his release, he was soon arrested a second time since he continued to work in the resistance as a courier. The Hanseatic District Court sentenced him on 22 Nov. 1934 for "preparing high treason” to one year in prison. At that time, Flora was pregnant and living as a lodger on Rutschbahn street. Shortly before going into labor, she moved in with her widowed stepmother Henny Andrade, née Katzenstein (born 13 Oct. 1875), who lived near Rudolf’s parents at Schlachterstraße 46/47. (Flora’s father Joseph Andrade, born 9 Feb. 1870, died 15 Mar. 1933, had married Henny after the premature death of his first wife Franziska, née Horwitz, in 1914.)

Flora and Rudolf’s son Bernd, nicknamed Berni, was born on 1 June 1935. After Rudolf’s release from prison, the young family found their own apartment at Schlüterweg 8. Rudolf, who had become self-employed prior to his arrest, was now no longer allowed to work as a mobile street vendor and had to return to compulsory labor, this time clearing the old Jewish cemetery in Grindel, located at the corner of Renzelstraße and An der Verbindungsbahn. To avoid a further arrest, he fled on bicycle over the green border to Belgium in May 1938. Flora followed him several months later with three-year-old Bernd.

Rudolf’s younger sister Johanna, called Hanni by her family, worked as a domestic servant and at times in the Bavarian Beer Hall at Pferdemarkt. Like Rudolf, Johanna’s financée Friedrich "Fritz” Wüllenweber (born 26 Sept. 1904) was also politically active. He belonged to the Communist Party of Germany. In Dec. 1933, during an illegal demonstration, he was arrested on Bartelsstraße and taken to Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp. When Johanna tried to visit him, she was informed that he had hung himself in his cell on 15 Dec. 1933. (A Stumbling Stone commemorates Friedrich Wüllenweber at Laeiszstraße 18.) Two years later she herself was taken into "protective custody” from 3 to 11 Dec. 1935 because she had become engaged to a non-Jewish man.

Johanna Neumann then ran her Uncle Andreas London’s household at Friedrichsberger Straße 35. He required help because he had gone blind at a very young age from an eye ailment and his wife Dora London, née Plackmeyer (born 15 Aug. 1874), had suffered a major accident in 1935 and was in hospital.

Afterwards Johanna too had to do compulsory labor until 1938 when she went back to live in her uncle’s household as an attendant of the blind. Her aunt Dora London had in the meantime been institutionalized at Friedrichsberg Mental and Nursing Home where she died on 12 Mar. 1940.

Due to alleged "racial defilement,” Johanna Neumann was once again taken into custody. On 30 Nov. 1940 she was sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp for women, without having been sentenced. She was given prisoner number 5152, and on 23 Mar. 1942 she was killed at the killing center in Bernburg on the River Saale. (Her uncle Andreas London was deported to Theresienstadt on 26 Feb. 1943 where he perished on 18 Jan. 1944. See the Stumbling Stones in Hamburg-Barmbek).

Their younger sister Hildegard was also taken into custody under the charge of "racial defilement”. She had left school in 1935 at the age of 15 and then worked for two years in the households of Jewish families on Grindelallee and the Colonnaden. She was no longer able to start occupational training since she, as a Jew, was prohibited from using the apprenticeship placement agency. After her employer left the country and she subsequently lost her job, Hildegard worked as a packer at a fish factory and later for a wool carder, most likely compulsory work. In Mar. 1939 she became ill with diphtheria.

Hildegard became pregnant and gave birth to her son Sally on 27 Apr. 1940. She declared the father of her child as Herbert Arthur Niemann (born 18 Feb. 1920). At that time he worked, like two of her brothers, in the port as a vessel cleaner. Herbert Arthur Niemann was sentenced to two years in prison for "racial defilement”, was later drafted into the navy and killed in Novorosssijsk, Russia on 10 Sept. 1943.

Hildegard was also taken into "protective custody” on 7 Jan. 1941 and interrogated at the Stadthaus. On 7 Mar. she was taken to Fuhlsbüttel Police Prison. Her mother Sophie and her older, married sister Therese Benken were permitted to visit her there. On 10 Dec. 1942 Hildegard Neumann was removed from the prison, which was to be made "free of Jews”, and deported to Auschwitz concentration camp where she was killed on 1 Jan. 1943.

Her brother Adolf Richard Neumann was dismissed from the seventh grade of the elementary school on Poolstraße in Apr. 1939. He would have liked to have set out to sea and began a "mariners apprenticeship” that summer on a barge that navigated German rivers. He was forced to give up that position when war broke out since the owner of the barge was drafted into military service. Adolf Richard then volunteered to work on a farm outside of Hamburg for several weeks. Upon his return, he found work as a messenger for Kohlenhandlung Schulz on Mühlenstraße. Shortly thereafter, on 18 May 1940, neighbors reported Adolf Richard to the police and he was arrested in the apartment of Kurt Edmund Fritz Dombeck (see his entry) at Brüderstraße 3. On 1 July 1940 Hamburg Local Court sentenced him on suspicion of "perverse fornication” to four months in prison, which he served at Hahnöfersand Youth Detention Center. From there he was transferred to Glasmoor Penitentiary and in Apr. 1941 registered at Sachsenhausen concentration camp with the prisoner number 37273 in barrack 36. Adolf Richard Neumann was killed in Auschwitz on 2 Nov. 1942.

After Adolf Richard’s arrest, his older brothers Alfred and Leo were also taken into custody. They had both begun a bricklaying apprenticeship after leaving school, an apprenticeship they never finished. They worked various jobs, as a messenger, laborer at the Jewish cemetery, in agriculture, and as underground construction workers, the later most likely as compulsory labor. The brothers then worked as vessel cleaners for the company Willy Richter. On 28 Jan. 1941 Alfred Neumann was sentenced to six years, Leo Neumann to three years in prison for "racial defilement”. That same year they were transferred to Lingen Penitentiary in Ems. When all prisons were made "free of Jews” from Oct. to Nov. 1942, Alfred and Leo Neumann were sent to Auschwitz. Alfred was killed there on 30 Jan. 1943, his brother Leo Neumann on 14 Feb. 1943.

Their father Moritz Neumann was also deported from Fuhlsbüttel Penitentiary to Auschwitz on 10 Dec. 1942. The date of his death is not known, he died in 1943.

After the arrest of her family, Sophie Neumann lived at Hohe Bleichen 34, House 3. At the time of her deportation, she lived with her grandson Sally in Altona at Oelkersallee 25, House 4. On 6 Dec. 1941 they both followed their deportation orders to Riga. (Her landlady at Langergang 25, Henny Ehrlich, was on the same transport. See her entry.)

Her eldest daughter Therese Behnken, who had been married to the non-Jewish Julius Bruno Behnken (born 8 Jan. 1907) since 1930, survived the National-Socialist period despite persecution and repression in her "privileged” mixed-marriage with her two children Gisela and Gerhard.

Her brother Rudolf Neumann was separated from his wife Flora and son Bernd after Belgium was occupied. He survived several internment camps in the south of France, extremely heavy forced labor at Laurahütte concentration camp, a subcamp of Auschwitz-Monowitz, and was liberated from Buchenwald concentration camp following an "evacuation march”. He found his family again in Belgium. Flora too survived Auschwitz-Birkenau and a death march. Belgian nuns hid Bernd. After the war, Flora and Rudolf took care of Jewish children in a Belgian orphanage, children who had survived in forests. When the orphanage was closed, they returned to Hamburg in 1921 and ran a small laundry in Karolinen District for many years.

Flora’s sister Paula Müller, née Andrade (born 12 Mar. 1909), and her daughter Rita Henny Müller (born 1 Dec. 1929) were deported to Theresienstadt on 15 July 1942 and from there to Auschwitz on 29 Jan. 1943 where they were killed (see Stumbling Stones at Beim Schlump 28). Her stepmother Henny Andrade was deported to Theresienstadt on 19 July 1942 where she died on 17 Sept. 1943 (Stumbling Stone at Stellinger Weg 11).

From Rudolf’s family, his aunt Lina Schüppenhauer, née London, his mother Sophie’s sister mentioned above, was deported on 14 Oct. 1942 from Ravensbrück concentration camp to Auschwitz and killed just a few days later on 29 Oct. 1942. Her son Hermann Willi Schüppenhauer (born 7 Mar. 1925) was put on a transport to Theresienstadt on 24 Feb. 1943. From there he was deported to Auschwitz on 28 Sept. 1944 where he was selected for forced labor. He died on 6 Mar. 1945 in Dachau concentration camp, shortly before the camp was liberated by Allied troops.

The National Socialist convictions for "racial defilement”, for which so many members of the Neumann Family lost their lives, were not abolished until 1998.

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

Stand: April 2020
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: 1; 3; 8; 9; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 2399 u 45/1895; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 2427 u 194/1897; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 3194 u 251/1912; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 3267 u 395/1915; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 3302 u 474/1917; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 807 u 38/1919; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 855 u 175/1922; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 1008 u 87/1933; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 8169 u 532/1940; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 1202 u 282/1944; StaH 351-11 AfW 46568 (Neumann, Adolf); StaH 351-11 AfW 37894 (Neumann, Alfred; StaH 351-11 AfW 44540 (Neumann, Hildegard); StaH 351-11 AfW 43292 (Neumann, Leo); StaH 351-11 AfW 30374 (Neumann, Johanna); StaH 351-11 AfW 31974 (Neumann, Rudolf); StaH 351-11 AfW 5988 (Neumann, Moritz); StaH 351-11 AfW 8479 (Neumann, Sophie); StaH 351-11 AfW 31952 (Behnken, Julius Bruno); StaH 351-11 AfW 6053 (London, Andreas); StaH 351-11 AfW 25971 (Hostmann, Ottilie); StaH 351-11 AfW 19720 (Schüppenhauer, Lina); StaH 351-11 AfW 1145 (Wüllenweber, Emma); StaH 351-14 Arbeits- und Sozialbehörde 1626 (Neumann, Moritz); StaH 351-14 Arbeits- und Sozialbehörde 1907 (Schüppenhauer, Lina); StaH 424-11 Amtsgericht Hamburg 5701; StaH 242-1 II 3979 Gefängnisverwaltung; StaH 242-1 II 3976 Gefängnisverwaltung; StaH 213-11 Amtsgericht Hamburg 1122/41; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinde Nr. 992 e 2 Band 3; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinde Nr. 992 e 2 Band 4; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinde Nr. 992 e 2 Band 5; Bernhard Rosenkranz/Ulf Bollmann/Gottfried Lorenz: Homosexuellen Verfolgung in Hamburg 1919–1969, S. 206, S. 240; Flora Neumann: Erinnern, um zu leben; www.ancestry.de (Heiratsregistereintrag von Sophie London und Moritz Neumann in Berlin am 31.10.1904, Zugriff 24.2.2018).
Zur Nummerierung häufig genutzter Quellen siehe Link "Recherche und Quellen".