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Bianca Levy, geb. von Halle
© Yad Vashem

Bianca Levy (née von Halle) * 1882

Haynstraße 7 (Hamburg-Nord, Eppendorf)

1941 Riga
ermordet

further stumbling stones in Haynstraße 7:
Gertrud Blut, Hannchen Fromme, Ilse Victor, Manfred Victor

Abraham Levy, born 08/01/1873 in Samter/Posen, deported to Riga on 12/06/1941
Bianca Levy, née von Halle, born 10/04/1882 in Hamburg, deported to Riga on 12/06/1941

Haynstrasse 7

Abraham Levy, son of Tobias and Dora Levy, née Zöllner, a trained and experienced commercial trader, came to Hamburg around 1900 from Samter, a county seat in the then Prussian province of Posen, today the Polish Poznan. Here, he married Bianca von Halle, a Hamburg girl, daughter of John and Jenny von Halle. Abraham and Bianca were of Jewish faith. Two sons were born from the young union, Theodor in 1905, Fritz (Fréderic) in 1909.

We do not know why Abraham Levy only joined the Hamburg Jewish Community in 1911. But the community records do reveal that he had made great progress in a wide range of activities.

He was an export merchant, ran a river shipping company and owned an inland transport company with headquarters at Deichtorstrasse 8, in the so-called Ibsen building. The family first lived at Grindelberg 70, later at Hartungstrasse 12, next to what later became the Jewish Community Center and is now the "Kammerspiele” theater.

When the Nazis came to power in 1933, the two Levy sons were independent and perceptive enough to leave their homeland that had turned hostile to them as soon as possible. Theodor, the elder son, then 27, had absolved high school in Eppendorf and been trained as an assistant merchant in his father’s company, where he soon became manager. Having already left Germany in 1934, he lived in France for two years, and then moved on to the USA, where he settled in Chicago and became a land and real estate agent and administrator.

His younger brother Fritz, who had absolved an apprenticeship as a wool merchant, soon followed Theodor to France. Settling in Marseille, he soon adjusted his fist name to Fréderic, which sounded more familiar to French ears.

Their parents first did not consider emigration. Abraham Levy was 60 in 1933, he was spry, enjoyed his work and wanted to continue at it for a long time; he did not consider leaving the country at his advanced age, regardless of how oppressing the situation might be.
The "Decree on the Deployment of Jewish Assets” of December 3rd, 1938 prohibited Jews from running their own business. Thus, Abraham Levy’s flourishing company was forcibly "aryanized” and sold to an "Aryan” buyer far below its actual value. We don’t know the price, but then, it wasn’t really relevant to the Levys, as their account at the Commerz- und Privatbank, into which the purchase sum was paid, was confiscated by a "Security Order”. The new owners of their company, the Hamburg branch of the Dampfschiffs-Reederei GmbH, Landsberg/Warthe, a shipping company, had at least committed themselves to pay a monthly pension of 400 RM into this account, which was also the amount the family was allowed for their living, as long as they did not leave the country. Any further dispositions required special permission from the Chief Finance Administrator.

Bianca Levy had inherited a downtown property at Steindamm 99 from her parents that also passed into "Aryan” ownership in March, 1939; she was subsequently deprived of the disposition of the proceeds.

An event that was relatively insignificant in relation to the crimes that had already been committed against the Levys shall be mentioned here: On March 20th, 1939, Bianca Levy was forced to open her safe deposit box no. 224 at the Compribank under the supervision of a finance officer and to present the contents. These were pieces of personal jewelry, e.g. a tie pin with a pearl, a rose medallion, a couple of beautiful rings and bracelets. From that moment on, these items no longer belonged to their rightful owner, but had to be immediately surrendered to the state pawnshop.

Only now did the Levys begin making efforts for their emigration; they wanted to go to the USA, where Theodor made efforts to get Visas for his parents. Preparing an emigration in Germany was a time-consuming and costly procedure. You had to get confirmations and permissions, Jews had to pay the "levy on Jewish assets” and the Reich Flight Tax; All costs had to be paid in advance and payment documented before the final permission was given, and the release of every pfennig had to be approved by the Chief finance Administrator.

The earliest document indicating the Levy couple’s plan to emigrate is dated January 30th, 1940, when the Tax Investigation Service of the Tax Office for the Right Bank of the Alster reported to the Gestapo that they suspected Abraham and Bianca Levy of "making preparations to move their residence out of the country.” But the Levy’s didn’t make it. On February 26th, 1941, the Housing Office forced them to vacate their apartment in Hartungstrasse and move to Agnesstrasse 39, the house of the Jewish family Rosenbacher, where other Jews had already been quartered (cf. Rosenbacher, Charlotte). The Levys got permission to sub-let a room, perform certain additional services and receive the amount of 65 RM in cash – but at the same time, their monthly allowance was cut from 400 to 370 RM.

A new forced move followed after hardly nine months in Agnesstrasse, now to Haynstrasse 7, ground floor left side, c/o Fromme. The Levys moved in there on November 10th, 1941. Haynstrasse 5 and 7 were "Jews’ houses”, gathering places before deportation. The Levys were soon notified that they were to prepare for "evacuation” on December 6th.

Overshadowed by crimes like deportations, gassings or mass shootings that surpass human imagination, everyday tortures, humiliations and arbitrary actions that people were subject to for years tend to be forgotten.

On November 24th, 102.35 RM arrived from Marseille; Fritz, who was extremely short on cash himself, wanted to support his parents during their relocation. The Levys asked the Currency Bureau for permission to keep the money. "Denied!” The 102.35 RM had to be paid into the "security account.”

A day later, Abraham Levy asked for the release of 600 RM "for purchases, because our evacuation is imminent.” – "Approved!”

On December 6th, 1941, a deportation train carrying 753 men, women and children departed from Hannover Station in the Port of Hamburg, bound for the Riga Ghetto, Abraham and Bianca Levy among them. Only few survived.

In the unheated quarters of the Jungfernhof estate near Riga, some of them open barns, the temperature in that winter dropped to -35° C (-31° F).

Fritz (Fréderic) emigrated from France to Israel in the 1960s. After his flight from Germany, and especially after the murder of his parents, his psychic and physical condition was often very poor, a fact that impaired his professional advancement. Applications to the Hamburg Compensation Office for support in financing medical treatment were denied because he was unable to submit a medical certificate that his poor health was "caused by persecution.”


Translated by Peter Hubschmid
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: March 2017
© Johannes Grossmann

Quellen: 1; 2; 4; 5; 8; StaH 351-11 AfW, 2029 Theodore Levy; StaH 351-11 AfW, 2030 Fred Levy; StaH 314-15 OFP, R 1939/2179; Meyer (2006), S.65 und 74; StaH 332-8 Meldewesen, A 51/1.
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