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Julius Nehemias * 1895

Dorotheenstraße 59 (Hamburg-Nord, Winterhude)

1940 Landesanstalt Brandenburg
ermordet

further stumbling stones in Dorotheenstraße 59:
Johanna Nehemias

Johanna Nehemias, née Rothgiesser, b. 9.12.1867 in Hamburg, deported on 15.7.1942 to Theresienstadt, where she died on 15.4.1943
Julius Nehemias, b. 1.24.1895 in Hamburg, murdered on 9.23.1940 in Brandenburg

Julius was the son of Johanna Nehemias and her husband Bernard (b. 12.10.1855 in Hamburg, whose parents were Siegmund and Sara, née Biesenthal). Bernard probably died in 1940. The couple had two other children: Martha (b. 3.2.1889) and Jenny (b. 27.1.1895). The family was Jewish. Martha withdrew from the Jewish community of Hamburg with the notation "married out; in 1924 her sister was classified as "deformed." The communal religious tax files for Bernhard Nehemias listed addresses, at Schinkelstrasse 3, Preystrasse 4, and Dorotheenstrasse 59, among others. The last named seems to have been the family residence from the beginning of the 1920s until 1938. Julius also lived there, with his parents. He must have been mentally or psychologically ill because in February 1938 he was sent to the Langenhorn psychiatric hospital. He was doubly stigmatized as "Jewish and mentally ill" and fell victim to the T4 Euthanasia Program: on the first transport of this nature, he along with 136 fellow-sufferers, was taken to the Brandenburg Euthanasia Center and suffocated there by carbon monoxide.

Johanna Nehemias moved around 1940 to Schauenburgerstrasse 11 and then, certainly involuntarily, in April 1942 to the Jewish old people’s home at Frickestrasse 24. On 15 July 1942 she was deported to Theresienstadt. Her companions on this journey were, among others, Johanna Stern and Emil Mirabeau. She died on 5 April 1943 in Theresienstadt.


Translator: Richard Levy

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: November 2017
© Ulrike Sparr

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 8; Klaus Böhme, Uwe Lohalm (Hrsg.), Wege in den Tod, Hamburg 1993.
Zur Nummerierung häufig genutzter Quellen siehe Link "Recherche und Quellen".

Julius Nehemias, born on 24 Jan. 1895 in Hamburg, murdered on 23 Sept. 1940 in the Brandenburg/Havel euthanasia killing center

Stolperstein in Hamburg-Winterhude, at Dorotheenstrasse 59

Julius Nehemias was born on 24 Jan. 1895 in Hamburg-Harvestehude, at Grindelberg 41, as the youngest of three children of the Jewish parents Bernhard Nehemias and Johanna, née Rothgiesser, who were of the Jewish faith. His oldest sister, Marianne Martha, was born on 2 Mar. 1889, his second sister, Julchen Jenny, on 29 Jan. 1890, both at Billhorner Röhrendamm 2/4 in Billwerder-Ausschlag.

The Hamburg natives Bernhard and Johanna Nehemias had married on 5 June 1888. Bernhard Nehemias dealt with men’s clothing around 1888. At that time, the Hamburg directory contained several stores operating in the clothing trade under the name of Nehemias. Apparently, the owners were related. Like many other Jewish families during this period, the Nehemias family moved to the newly established Grindel quarter in 1893. When Julius Nehemias was born in 1895 at Grindelberg 41, his father no longer called himself a clothing dealer, but an "agent.” From about 1902, the family, now comprised of five, lived at Gärtnerstrasse 121 in the Hoheluft-West quarter. At that time, Bernhard Nehemias worked as a traveling salesman (sales representative). After further moves to Hoheluftchaussee 82 (Hoheluft-Ost quarter) and Krohnskamp 5 (Winterhude quarter), the Nehemias family finally found an apartment at Dorotheenstrasse 59 in Hamburg-Winterhude for many years, according to the Hamburg directory of 1917 or 1918.

Between 1911 and 1916, Julius Nehemias was a patient of the Friedrichsberg "lunatic asylum” ("Irrenanstalt Friedrichsberg”) three times. He was probably suffering from a mental illness. On 3 June 1916, he was admitted to the Langenhorn "lunatic asylum” ("Irrenanstalt Langenhorn”) and released again on 31 Dec. of the same year. In 1919, Julius was again in Friedrichsberg twice and then from 4 Feb. 1920 again in Langenhorn, this time for about seven months. Further hospital stays in Friedrichsberg followed in 1923 and 1925, and finally on 1 Apr. 1926, permanent admission to the Langenhorn institution, renamed "State Hospital” ("Staatskrankenanstalt”) after the First World War.

As Julius’ father grew older, he found it more and more difficult to provide for his family. In the early summer of 1925, he had to apply for welfare assistance. A passage in the report of the welfare worker reads, "Mr. N. is already 70 years old, he earns his living miserably by selling chocolates, his wife has been suffering from an ear condition for years, and furthermore, he has another son who has no position; he is suffering from a nervous disorder and receives 8 M.[arks] in benefits from the W.A. [welfare office]. And his daughter and son live with him. […] The economic circumstances at the Nehemiases are bleak.”

Julchen Jenny Nehemias, Julius’ sister, had married the "correspondent” Johann Hamm from Rothau in Bohemia on 7 Oct. 1910 and had a son with him by the name of Werner. The marriage was divorced in July 1913. Julchen Jenny received alimony from the father of their son, but had to provide for her own livelihood. When she lost her job at the Grindelhof student dormitory due to lack of work, she moved in with her parents, who had already given Julius’ room to a subtenant. The housing conditions were very cramped. Julius had to sleep on an old mattress on the floor when he was not in hospital.

On 13 Nov. 1925, Bernhard Nehemias died in the Israelite Hospital from the consequences of a stroke. From then on, his widow Johanna tried to keep the family, namely her daughter Julchen Jenny, the grandchild Werner, and at times her son Julius, "afloat.” In 1929, she moved into a smaller apartment at Schinkelstrasse 13 in Winterhude. She developed a kidney condition that severely affected her. After the death of her daughter Jenny on 14 Dec. 1933, Johanna Nehemias changed apartments again to lower the rent costs. She then lived at Preystrasse 4 in Winterhude and from Jan. 1939, at Sechslingspforte 16 in Hamburg-Hohenfelde. She was completely dependent on the support of her grandson Werner, who lived with her all these years.

We do not know whether Julius Nehemias, who laws a patient at the Langenhorn State Hospital, had contact with his family, especially his mother. His patient file, which could have provided information, no longer exists.

In the spring/summer of 1940, the "euthanasia” headquarters in Berlin, located at Tiergartenstrasse 4, planned a special operation aimed against Jews in public and private sanatoriums and nursing homes. It had the Jewish persons living in the institutions registered and moved together in what were officially so-called collection institutions. The Hamburg-Langenhorn "sanatorium and nursing home” ("Heil- und Pflegeanstalt” Hamburg-Langenhorn) was designated the North German collection institution. All institutions in Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, and Mecklenburg were ordered to move the Jews living in their facilities there by 18 Sept. 1940. Julius Nehemias was one of the patients who had been living in the institution in Hamburg-Langenhorn, now renamed the "Heil- und Pflegeanstalt,” for some time. On 23 September, he and 135 other patients from the North German institutions were loaded onto a train at the Ochsenzoll freight station and transported to Brandenburg/Havel. On the same day, the patients were killed with carbon monoxide in the part of the former penitentiary that had been converted into a gas-killing facility. Only Ilse Herta Zachmann escaped this fate at first (see corresponding entry).

It was noted on the birth register entry of Julius Nehemias that he had died on 2 Feb. 1941 and that the records office Chelm II had registered his death under number 458/1941. Those murdered in Brandenburg, however, were never in Chelm (Polish) or Cholm (German), a town east of Lublin. The former Polish sanatorium there no longer existed after SS units had murdered almost all patients on 12 Jan. 1940. Also, there was no German records office in Chelm. Its fabrication and the use of postdated dates of death served to disguise the killing operation and at the same time enabled the authorities to claim higher care expenses for periods extended accordingly.

Johanna Nehemias, a 75-year-old ill woman, received the deportation order for the transport to Theresienstadt on 15 July 1942. She died there on 5 Apr. 1943.

There are no references to Marianne Martha Nehemias and her nephew Werner Hamm in the Memorial Books and victim databases.
Johanna and Julius Nehemias are commemorated by Stolpersteine at Dorotheenstrasse 59 in Winterhude.

Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: March 2020
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 7; 9; StaH 133-1 III Staatsarchiv III, 3171-2/4 U.A. 4, Liste psychisch kranker jüdischer Patientinnen und Patienten der psychiatrischen Anstalt Langenhorn, die aufgrund nationalsozialistischer "Euthanasie"-Maßnahmen ermordet wurden, zusammengestellt von Peter von Rönn, Hamburg (Projektgruppe zur Erforschung des Schicksals psychisch Kranker in Langenhorn); 332-5 Standesämter 898 Sterberegister Nr. 456/1925 Bernhard Nehemias, 2210 Geburtsregister Nr. 411/1889 Marianne Martha Nehemias, 2239 Geburtsregister Nr. 243/1890 Julchen Jenny Nehemias, 9108 Geburtsregister Nr. 168/1895 Julius Nehemias, 9538 Heiratsregister Nr. 510/1910 Julchen Jenny Nehemias/Johann Hamm, 9813 Sterberegister Nr. 582 1925 Recha Rothgiesser, 8535 Heiratsregister Nr. 510/1888 Bernhard Nehemias/Johanna Rothgiesser; 351-14 Arbeits- und Sozialfürsorge – Sonderakten 1615 Bernhard Nehemias; 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn Abl. 1/1995 Aufnahme-/Abgangsbuch Langenhorn 26.8.1939 bis 27.1.1941; UKE/IGEM, Archiv, Patienten-Karteikarte Julius Nehemias der Staatskrankenanstalt Friedrichsberg.
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