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Samuel Rosenbaum * 1876

Alsterdorfer Straße 125 (Hamburg-Nord, Winterhude)

1941 Riga
ermordet

further stumbling stones in Alsterdorfer Straße 125:
Nanette Rosenbaum

Samuel Rosenbaum, born 12.11.1876 in Altona, on 6.12.1941, deported to Riga

Alsterdorfer Straße 125 (Winterhude)

Samuel Rosenbaum was born in 1876 in the Prussian city of Altona at Große Bergstraße 38. His parents, the "merchant" and business traveler Bernhard Rosenbaum (1849-1936), born in Zütphen (province of Gelderland) in the Netherlands and Rosa Rosenbaum, née Aron (1851-1942) from Neustadt in the Kingdom of Hanover (Neustadt am Rübenberge), had married in December 1872 in Altona in the High German Israelite congregation. After the birth of their third child Samuel, the family moved to Bremen for a few years Bremen, where the siblings Henriette "Henny" (16.6.1878), Eduard (2.8.1880) and Max (25.8.1882) were born. The family returned to Altona in 1885/1886. For the 10-year-old Samuel, the move also meant a change of school.

He probably completed an apprenticeship from 1891 to 1894. After that, depending on the school leaving certificate, he had to serve a period of military service of one year (for Abitur and or three years (for elementary school). From 1894, the "Commis" (clerk, traveling salesman) Samuel Rosenbaum was given his own resident registration card by the city of Altona. His name was given as "Samuel Rosenbaum, called Siegmund". The addresses noted underneath all had the addition "with parents" for the next ten years: Adolfstraße 110 II. Stock (1894-1898), Schulterblatt 36 II. Stock (1898-1903) and Friedenstraße 73 I. Stock (1903-1904).
In most cases, the parents only lived as subtenants, which meant cramped living conditions and indicates a low income.

On June 30, 1904 the 27-year-old left for the neighboring city of Hamburg. His parents and sister Henriette followed in 1909, by which time Samuel's father was already 60 years old. From 1915, Bernhard and Rosa Rosenbaum lived in a 2-room apartment belonging to the Z. H. May und Frau Foundation, which was founded in 1913, at Bogenstraße 25-27 (Eimsbüttel). Apartments were offered here for needy members of the Jewish community. From 1922, the couple received financial support from the Hamburg Welfare Office (mainly for coal and gas, rarely clothing or shoes) as Bernhard Rosenbaum had "neither a pension or other income" and was not insured with a health insurance fund.

Samuel Rosenbaum married Clara Frankfurter (born 29.1.1871 in Hamburg) on June 16, 1904, daughter of the Hamburg merchant Hamburg commercial broker Sally Frankfurter (1836-1905). The young couple lived at Rappstraße 11 (including in 1907) as subtenants and as main tenants at Bismarckstraße 58 II. Stock in Eimsbüttel (1908-1909), among others. In 1907 their daughter Frieda was born in Hamburg-Rotherbaum. Clara Rosenbaum took her own life a year later. Her body was found in the Rondeel Canal in November 1908. She was buried in the Hamburg-Ohlsdorf Jewish cemetery.

In his second marriage, Samuel Rosenbaum married Nanette Wolf (born 4.5.1881 in Ichenhausen/Bavaria). Frieda remained the only child. She attended the Höhere Israelitische Töchterschule in Bieberstraße from 1913 to 1922. She then graduated from the "Commercial Academy in Hamburg" run by Jacob L. Peters at Bergstraße 27. With this qualification, she then worked as a secretary and office clerk.

On the marriage certificate from 1904, Samuel Rosenbaum was described as a "traveling agent" (salesman), while in the 1909 address book only "chemical products” was given after his name. Overall, there are few concrete details are available about Samuel Rosenbaum's professional activities. Only for June 1923 did he give the welfare office his occupation as "traveling salesman for the wholesaler of bicycle parts and automobile articles Förster & Leuchtag at Bleichenbrücke 10 (Neustadt)".

The early Hamburg residential addresses of Samuel and Nanette Rosenbaum between 1910 and 1923 could not be found. At the wedding of his younger sister Henriette in June 1916, he was named as the witness to the marriage with the address Eckernförderstraße 75 (St. Pauli), very close to the Israelite Hospital. As Samuel Rosenbaum does not appear in the address book by name at this time, it can be assumed that he was a subtenant. In February 1923, he moved with his wife and daughter from the Steindamm 8 III. floor with musician Fr. Kähler (St. Georg) to his sister Bertha Cohn and her family in to Rappstraße 20, (Rotherbaum). It was not until October 1923 that Samuel and Nanette Rosenbaum lived as the main tenants at Bornstraße 2 (Rotherbaum), where they are listed from 1923-1926.

From 1927 to September 1935, the Rosenbaum family lived in a new building at Alsterdorfer Straße 125/corner of Braamkamp (Winterhude). The 3-room apartment on the first floor was, according to a later statement by the daughter furnished as "good middle class". The welfare office noted in the file of the parents in October 1928: "(Samuel) Rosenbaum has been ill for a long time because of ailments and calcification and can only partially pursue his profession as a traveler. His earnings are stated as 15-20 marks per month. A room is (...) rented out (...)."

With the National Socialists' "seizure of power" in January 1933, the family's economic situation deteriorated further. In the 1950s, the daughter reported that her father had opened a "business with chemical products, oils and fats for agricultural businesses" owned. From 1933, access to farms and mills for Jews who bought these products was made more difficult and prevented. The daughter, who had become engaged in December 1932, supported her parents financially in this situation.

After the daughter's marriage in April 1935, the son-in-law moved in with the Rosenbaums for a short time, the apartment in Alsterdorfer Straße was given up a few months later. In September 1935, Samuel and Nanette Rosenbaum moved - again as subtenants - into a room at Heinrich-Barth-Straße 7/9 (Rotherbaum). Their daughter continued to support them financially. In 1936, the 60-year-old Samuel Rosenbaum was noted on his father's death certificate with the occupation "representative".

After completing her education, the daughter worked for ten years as a secretary and office clerk. At the end of September 1933 she was fired because she was Jewish. After that, she was given occasional temporary jobs and unemployment benefit in between. In December 1934 she was employed by the watch wholesaler H. Abel (Hohe Bleichen 31/32) for four months and in February 1936 for 2 ½ years at the company for technical oils and Fette Dr. Emil Marx GmbH (Spitalerstraße 12, Semperhaus B). In her last permanent position, she received a monthly salary of 135 RM gross and 106 RM net.

In April 1935, she married Albert Blättner, who was also Jewish, (born 13.7.1901 in Harburg) and emigrated with him after his release from Sachsenhausen concentration camp to South America, first to Paraguay and then to Argentina in 1941. The ship passage was partly paid by the Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden.

Samuel Rosenbaum now also endeavored to obtain the necessary documents for emigration. In July 1939, he applied to the Hamburg police authority for a certificate of good conduct and submitted it in August 1939 together with his birth and marriage certificates to the Consulate General of Paraguay in Hamburg at Immenhof 18 (Uhlenhorst), where the documents were stamped. Due to climatic and economic conditions, Paraguay was not one of the most highly sought-after countries of exile. Due to the increasingly radical anti-Jewish measures in Germany, the resulting increase in refugee numbers and more restrictive immigration laws in many countries, however, visas for countries such as Paraguay, with their liberal immigration conditions, have now also become available.

For the landlocked country of Paraguay, it was necessary to pass through Uruguay and Argentina, which made it necessary to obtain a transit visa. Argentina had closed its borders to refugees in 1938.
The number of German refugees accepted by Paraguay between 1933 and between 1933 and 1945 is estimated at around 1,000. The beginning of the Second World War II, limited financial resources and the problems with transit visas as well as the age of Samuel Rosenbaum (62 years old) are likely to have made the efforts, so that it was no longer possible to submit an official departure application to the foreign currency office of the Chief Finance President in Hamburg. In October 1941 the "emigration" of Jews from Germany was generally prohibited by the Nazi regime.

At the time of the census in May 1939, Samuel and Nanette Rosenbaum were living at Heinrich-Barth-Straße 7 I. Stock (Rotherbaum). On the Jewish community's religious tax card Samuel Rosenbaum is noted before October 1939 with the address Heinrich-Barth-Straße 9 at Possenheimer. Also in August 1936 the couple had had a room with stove heating for a monthly rent of 28 RM on the first floor of Heinrich-Barth-Straße 9 at Possenheimer. There ran according to the Hamburg address book of 1938, Susette "Susi" Possenheimer, née Würzburg (born 23.5.1897 in Hamburg), a typing bureau on the first floor with offered telephone connections. She emigrated to the USA in October 1939 with her daughters Gertrud and Lotte. When she as the main tenant moved out, the Rosenbaums had to look for new accommodation.

In addition to Samuel Rosenbaum's income as a "traveling agent" (salesman), which amounted to around 60 to 70 RM per month in 1936, Nanette Rosenbaum worked three days a week in the sewing room of the Jewish community, for which she received 6 RM per week.
From October 1939, the Rosenbaum couple lived at Rentzelstraße 5 (Rotherbaum) as subtenants of Cohn. In 1941 they moved to the Lazarus Gumpel Stift at Schlachterstraße 47, house 5 (Neustadt), which was used as a "Jews’ house”.

The move to a officially declared "Jews' house" from spring 1942 onwards later facilitated the Gestapo's deportations because the Jews there were already collected. On December 6, 1941, the Rosenbaum couple was transferred to the to the Jungfernhof subcamp of the Riga ghetto, because in the Riga ghetto the Wehrmacht and the SS-Einsatzgruppen just murdered the deportees en masse.

Due to the cold, inadequate food and the lack of sanitary and medical facilities, many deportees died in the Jungfernhof in the unheated barracks of the former agricultural estate, including Samuel and Nanette Rosenbaum.
The dead of Jungfernhof were not registered, so later, in the course of the compensation proceedings, the two were registered in Hamburg declared them dead on May 9, 1945.

The Nazi state also appropriated the Rosenbaums' remaining belongings and had them sold through the auctioneer Bruno Kahl (exhibition rooms at Buchtstraße 6 in Hohenfelde) in February 1942. In this way, despite the few items and the low prices, the Hamburg Oberfinanzkasse still received 202,09 Reichsmark.

What happened to the other family members?
Samuel's brother Eduard Rosenbaum, like his father, was a traveling salesman and trader (in textile goods). He entered into a mixed marriage, i.e. he married 1905 to a non-Jewish woman from Altona and had four children with her. The family lived in Altona in a 3-room apartment at Lohmühlenstraße 76 III. Stock Vorderhaus (1911-1938), which was renamed Esmarchstraße after the incorporation of Altona in 1937/38. The economic existence of the textile merchant Rosenbaum had been affected by harassment and boycotts since 1933. 1936 he was forced to "give up his business", as his wife explained around 1950 explained. After that, the family lived from the sale of their valuables. Eduard Rosenbaum died on December 14, 1938 in Hamburg in the Israelite Hospital at Eckernförderstraße 4. In the death certificate of Dr. Walter Griesbach (1888-1968), with whom Eduard Rosenbaum had been receiving treatment since October 29, 1938 the cause of death was myodenegeneratio cordis (age-related heart) and myocardial insufficiency. The wife was deprived of her home in 1939. Two sons were arrested and deported to Auschwitz in 1942 and 1943 respectively.

Samuel's brother Max Rosenbaum had also married a non-Jewish woman in Altona in 1912 with whom he had three daughters. In February 1938, the marriage was divorced at the instigation of his wife. He remarried a year later. In January 1941, he was employed by the shoe wholesaler Rasch & Jung (Große Bleichen 31) as a warehouse worker, presumably in forced labor. He was imprisoned in the Fuhlsbüttel Gestapo prison and concentration camp and deported from there to the Lodz ghetto on October 25, 1941, where he died on March 28, 1942. He is commemorated is commemorated by a Stolperstein at Bartelsstraße 76 (Eimsbüttel), where he lived on the ground floor from May 1939. His second wife Edith Rosenbaum, née Lachotzki, divorced Hauptmann (born 20.2.1899 in Berlin) was deported on December 6, 1941 together with their daughter Mathel (born 14.2.1940 in Hamburg) to the Riga-Jungfernhof ghetto.

Samuel's older sister Bertha Cohn, née Rosenbaum (born 11.11.1875 in Altona), worked as a shop assistant and as a sales clerk. In 1908 she married the Hamburg merchant Joseph Hertz Cohn (1878-1940), with whom she had two children. From 1919, the couple lived in a 3-room apartment at Rappstraße 20, ground floor (Rotherbaum). Their son Herbert Cohn (1909-1964) was imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in November 1938 and emigrated to England in April 1939 with a trainee permit. The 66-year-old Bertha Cohn was deported on November 18, 1941 to the Minsk ghetto, together with her daughter Ilse Kunert, née Cohn (born 17.5.1913 in Hamburg), and her husband Herbert Kunert (born 24.9.1907 in Wuppertal) and her niece Henni Simonsohn (born 3.10.1905 in Hamburg).

Samuel's younger sister Henriette Pick, née Rosenbaum, had married the journeyman tailor Josef Pick (born 9.4.1876 in Seletitz/Bohemia) in Hamburg in 1916. The witnesses to the marriage were her father Bernhard Rosenbaum and her brother Samuel Rosenbaum. The couple lived separately from August 1935, after which Henriette moved back in with her parents, where she slept in the kitchen in the night. She applied for welfare in the same month. Around 1937 the marriage was divorced. Henriette Pick was deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto on July 15, 1942 and from there on December 18, 1943 to the extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau and murdered.

Samuel's older sister Jenny Simonsohn, née Rosenbaum (born 14.9.1874 in Altona), married the traveling agent Louis Simonsohn in 1899 (born 7.1.1878 in Marienburg/East Prussia), who sold shoemaking articles such as leather, imitation leather and rubber heels. From 1928, the year in which Louis Simonsohn underwent stomach surgery and recovered only slowly, the family was dependent on support from the state welfare. From November 1935, Jenny Simonsohn lived with her husband and daughter Henny (born 3.10.1905 in Hamburg) in a 3 ½ room apartment on the second floor of Bundesstraße 40 (Rotherbaum). By subletting, the rental costs could be reduced by around half. Louis Simonsohn was deported to Minsk on November 8, 1941, Jenny Simonsohn to Theresienstadt on July 15, 1942 and from there on December 18, 1943 deported to the Auschwitz extermination camp together with her sister Henriette.

Samuel's mother Rosa Rosenbaum had lived with her husband Bernhard in Eimsbüttel since 1915 in a 2-room apartment belonging to the Z. H. May und Frau Foundation at Bogenstraße 27, apartment 10. After the death of her husband in 1936, she moved to Bogenstraße 25, in 1939, to apartment 19, which also belonged to the foundation. Her daughter Henriette also lived here, as the 1939 census shows. According to documents from the Hamburg Welfare Office, 88-year-old Rosa Rosenbaum was hospitalized in June/July 1939 for four weeks with a suspected skull base fracture and spinal injury in the Israelite Hospital. In November 1939, she was described as suffering from a heart condition. Rosa Rosenbaum died on October 28, 1942 in an apartment at Beneckestraße 6 (Rotherbaum), which belonged to the Jewish community. The house was declared a "Jews' house" and used for the forced quartering of mainly for older Jews before their deportation. The cause of death on Rosa Rosenbaum's death certificate was "pneumonia". According to the current entry in the database of the Federal Archives, however suicide. In the Hamburg police authority's register of "unnatural deaths" of the time, however, her name is not listed.

Translation Beate Meyer

Stand: December 2023
© Björn Eggert

Quellen: Staatsarchiv Hamburg (StaH) 213-13 (Landgericht Hamburg, Wiedergutmachung), 20487 (Samuel Rosenbaum); StaH 213-13 (Landgericht Hamburg, Wiedergutmachung), 21123 (Louis u. Jenny Simonsohn); StaH 314-15 (Oberfinanzpräsident), FVg 3589 (Albert Blättner u. Frieda Blättner geb. Rosenbaum); StaH 314-15 (Oberfinanzpräsident), R 1938/1321 (Herbert Michael Kunert, Ermittlung wegen Auswanderungsabsicht); StaH 314-15 (Oberfinanzpräsident), FVg 7699 (Susette Possenheimer, später Susi Postheim, mit Töchtern Gertrud und Lotte); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 6193 u. 3252/1876 (Geburtsregister Altona 1876, Samuel Rosenbaum); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 8632 u. 384/1904 (Heiratsregister 1904, Samuel Rosenbaum u. Clara Frankfurter); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 5965 u. 23/1905 (Heiratsregister 1905, Eduard Rosenbaum u. Maria Tagge); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 7982 u. 529/1905 (Sterberegister 1905, Sally Frankfurter); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 14861 u. 574/1907 (Geburtsregister 1907, Frieda Rosenbaum); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 9682 u. 2952/1908 (Sterberegister 1908, Clara Rosenbaum geb. Frankfurter); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 5978 u. 44/1908 (Heiratsregister 1908, Joseph Hertz Cohn u. Bertha Rosenbaum); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 6007 u. 764/1912 (Heiratsregister 1912, Max Rosenbaum u. Martha Kunze); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 8710 u. 101/1916 (Heiratsregister 1916, Josef Pick u. Henriette Rosenbaum); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 1053 u. 473/1936 (Sterberegister 1936, Bernhard Rosenbaum); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 1089 u. 417/1938 (Sterberegister 1938, Eduard Rosenbaum); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 8168 u. 229/1940 (Sterberegister 1940, Joseph Cohn); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 8180 u. 542/1942 (Sterberegister 1942, Rosa Rosenbaum geb. Aron); StaH 332-8 (Meldewesen), Alte Einwohnermeldekartei Altona, K 7369 (1892-1919), Bernhard Rosenbaum, Bertha Rosenbaum, Eduard Rosenbaum, Max Rosenbaum, Samuel Rosenbaum; StaH 351-11 (Amt für Wiedergutmachung), 24740 (Frieda Blättner geb. Rosenbaum); StaH 351-11 (Amt für Wiedergutmachung), 4151 (Sophie Rosenbaum, Ehefrau von Eduard Rosenbaum); StaH 351-11 (Amt für Wiedergutmachung), 9404 (erste Ehefrau von Max Rosenbaum); StaH 351-11 (Amt für Wiedergutmachung), 6087 (Margot Rosenbaum, Tochter von Max Rosenbaum); StaH 351-11 (Amt für Wiedergutmachung), 33967 (Herbert Cohn); StaH 351-14 (Arbeits- u. Sozialfürsorge), 1733 (Bernhard u. Rosa Rosenbaum); StaH 351-14 (Arbeits- u. Sozialfürsorge), 1686 (Henriette Pick); StaH 351-14 (Arbeits- u. Sozialfürsorge), 1851 (Louis Simonsohn); StaH 351-14 (Arbeits- u. Sozialfürsorge), 1730 (Max Rosenbaum); StaH 522-1 (Jüdische Gemeinden), 222c (Heiraten 1866-1874), Handelsmann Bernhard Rosenbaum, Altona u. Rosa Aron, Altona am 25.12.1872; StaH 522-1 (Jüdische Gemeinden), 992b (Kultussteuerkartei der Deutsch-Israelitischen Gemeinde Hamburg), Samuel Rosenbaum, Nanette Rosenbaum, Max Rosenbaum, Bertha Cohn geb. Rosenbaum, Herbert J. Cohn; Bundesarchiv Berlin, R 1509 (Reichssippenamt), Volks-, Berufs-, u. Betriebszählung am 17. Mai 1939 (Henriette Pick geb. Rosenbaum, Bogenstr. 25 II.; Rosa Rosenbaum geb. Aron, Bogenstr. 25 II.; Samuel u. Nanette Rosenbaum, Heinrich-Barth-Str. 7 I.; Max u. Edith Rosenbaum, Hermann Hauptmann, Martha Hauptmann, Bartelsstr. 76 EG; Josef Pick, Amelungstr. 6; Hertha Cohn geb. Rosenbaum, Rappstr. 20; Joseph Hertz Cohn, Rappstr. 20; Ilse Kunert geb. Rosenbaum, Rappstr. 20); Jüdischer Friedhof Ohlsdorf (Clara Rosenbaum geb. Frankfurter, gestorben 21.11.1908, beerdigt 24.11.1908, Grablage ZY 10 Nr. 103; Bernhard Rosenbaum, gestorben 16.12.1936, beerdigt 18.12.1936, Grablage G Nr. 225, Beerdigungsbrüderschaft, Grab Nr. 226 ist reserviert; Eduard Rosenbaum, gestorben 14.12.1938, beerdigt 16.12.1938, Grablage F Nr. 265, Beerdigungsbrüderschaft); Ina Lorenz/ Jörg Berkemann (Hrsg.), Die Hamburger Juden im NS-Staat 1933 bis 1938/39, Band V, S. 145-155 (Visa für Paraguay); Wilhelm Mosel, Wegweiser zu ehemaligen jüdischen Stätten in Hamburg, Heft 2, Hamburg 1985, S. 52-53 (Bogenstr. 25 u. 27); Hamburger Börsenfirmen, Hamburg 1935, S. 1 (H. Abel Uhrengroßhandlung), S. 551 (Dr. Emil Marx GmbH); Adressbuch Hamburg (S. Rosenbaum, Reisender) 1925, 1926; Adressbuch Hamburg (S. Rosenbaum, Kaufmann) 1927, 1928, 1930, 1933, 1935; Adressbuch Hamburg (B. Rosenbaum, Reisender) 1915, 1916, 1918, 1922, 1927, 1930, 1932, 1936; Adressbuch Hamburg (Witwe Rosa Rosenbaum) 1938-1943; Adressbuch Hamburg (J. Cohn, Rappstr. 20) 1919, 1920, 1923, 1930, 1935, 1941; Adressbuch Altona (Lohmühlenstr. 76) 1911, 1912, 1916, 1938, 1939 (E. Rosenbaum, Reisender); Gedenkbuch Bundesarchiv Koblenz, Opfer der Verfolgung der Juden unter der nationalsozialistischen Gewaltherrschaft in Deutschland 1933-1945, Bertha Cohn geb. Rosenbaum, Henriette Pick geb. Rosenbaum, Jakob Possenheimer, Max Rosenbaum, Rosa Rosenbaum geb. Aron; www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de (Max Rosenbaum, Anna Frankfurter, Henriette Frankfurter, Martha Hauptmann).