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Erna Meyerson (née Grandzior) * 1892

Brahmsallee 25 (Eimsbüttel, Harvestehude)

HIER WOHNTE
ERNA MEYERSON
GEB. GANDZIOR
JG. 1892
DEPORTIERT 1942
THERESIENSTADT
ERMORDET 9.1.1944

further stumbling stones in Brahmsallee 25:
Max Abraham, Kathy (Käthy) Abraham, Georg Meyerson, Anneliese Meyerson, Hildegard Meyerson, Harriet Peyser, John Rogozinski, Max Wagner

Georg Meyerson, born 17 Dec. 1884 in Schwerin, deported 19 July 1942 from Hamburg to Theresienstadt, deported 9 Oct. 1944 to Auschwitz
Erna Meyerson, née Gandzior, born 14 May 1892 in Gleiwitz, deported 19 July 1942 from Hamburg to Theresienstadt, perished there 9 Jan. 1944
Anneliese Meyerson, born 21 May 1922 in Mannheim, deported 19 July 1942 from Hamburg to Theresienstadt, perished there 24 Oct. 1942
Hildegard Meyerson, born 28 Sept. 1923 in Mannheim, deported 19 July 1942 from Hamburg to Theresienstadt, deported 9 Oct. 1944 onward to Auschwitz

Brahmsallee 25

Georg Meyerson was born the son of Heinrich and Agnes Meyerson, née Ehrenbaum, on 17 Dec. 1884 in Schwerin. He probably left the city when he came of age. His parents were both fabric merchants by profession and are buried at the Jewish cemetery in Rostock. Georg Meyerson’s religious tax card shows that he received a 50 percent retirement for severe war disabilities, so we can assume that he served as a soldier in World War I. He was injured four times and sustained a severe brain injury which left him agitated.

Following his recovery, he lived in Mannheim where he married Elsa, née Kander, on 10 Oct. 1920, a native of Mannheim born on 16 Feb. 1885. She came from a Jewish merchant family that had been living in Mannheim since Sept. 1879. From 17 Oct. 1920 to 15 Feb. 1928, the family lived at Lameystraße 13 on the first floor. They took over the residence and store space from his wife’s parents. They ran an agency business from there. Georg Meyerson kept his own antique shop in Mannheim. Two years after their wedding, the couple had their first daughter Anneliese, their second daughter Hildegard followed a year later. When the children were six and seven years old, their mother became ill with cervical cancer. Due to the expensive medication and care, Georg Meyerson fell on financial hardship and had to give up his business. That may have been the reason that the family moved to Hamburg on 15 Feb. 1928.

In Hamburg they lived at Dillstraße 1. To spare the children the sight of their mother’s suffering, their parents sent them to the Jewish orphanage for girls Paulinenstift, sponsored by the German-Israelite Community in Hamburg. On 30 July 1931, Else Meyerson died from her illness. She passed away at Israelite Hospital at Eckernförderstraße 4 and was buried at Ilandkoppel Jewish Cemetery in Ohlsdorf.

The lawyer Joseph Sommer assumed care custody of the two under-aged half-orphans. They inherited a considerable sum from their late mother’s brother and marriage witness, the physician Oskar Ehrmann, but were not allowed to touch the money. Their father also could not touch the money until his eldest daughter turned 18. Due to his wife’s illness and his own limited ability to work, Georg Meyerson found himself in a financial crisis. He wanted to buy a car so he could work as a travelling cotton goods salesman, but he did not have the money. In 1933 he managed to convince Joseph Sommer that it made sense to borrow money against the girls’ securities so that he could realize his plan. However Joseph Sommer emigrated on 5 Oct. 1933. The lawyer Henry Minden took over custody of the girls. He represented the girls’ interests in the legal battle between the orphanage and the children’s father. His daughters received full board and an education at the girls’ school of the German-Israelite Community on Carolinenstraße. The monthly fee of 81 RM that their father was to pay the home often arrived late or was not paid at all. Georg Meyerson complained that his children often were only given pudding to eat in the evening and that they did not have adequate provisions or clothing. In particular he complained about Anneliese’s appearance. In their defense, the home presented the balanced and varied food menu of the past two weeks and affirmed that they only cooked with butter and the children were under constant supervision by a doctor. Time and again, their father expressed his desire to bring his children back home, but the caregivers at the home did not consider that a good option. They complained to the girls’ guardian about Meyerson’s outstanding payments. They had kept the girls "at the home purely out of human concern”.

That same year, custody court deprived Georg Meyerson of administering and using the children’s assets, and the girls received a new guardian, Emil von Sauer. In response, Georg Meyerson announced he would remove his children from the Paulinenstift by 1 Oct., even though he practically had no income. He was going to move out of the small room he lived in at Grindelhof 77 and find a housekeeper for a new apartment. At that the lawyer inquired with his current landlady as to her tenant’s behavior. She replied that he was a little strange but very good-natured. But since Georg Meyerson could neither find a housekeeper nor an apartment, the girls continued to stay at the home.

Yet Anneliese’s time there was coming to an end, for the caregivers there thought she was developing poorly. They wrote the guardian, "You may not know that Anneliese Meyerson is retarded both mentally and in terms of her character. However it is clear to every teacher that it is very difficult to teach this kind of child to care for herself and her appearance, if at all.” With that she no longer stood a chance of starting a training position or joining a Hakhshara camp to prepare for immigration to Palestine.

As of 1935, Georg Meyerson had pursued his goal of immigrating to Palestine. However the British government required of adults wanting to make the journey that they possess 1,000 pounds sterling. On 5 Sept. 1936, Meyerson received confirmation from the Reich Bank that the children’s assets would be transferred to Palestine. He wanted to buy land there.

Anneliese, though, was discharged from the Paulinenstift on 1 Apr. 1937 and took a position at a manor near Horsten (Horster Grashaus) in East Frisia where she worked in the household and on the farm. In 1938, Anneliese was dismissed from Horster Grashaus because the manor was forced to let all Jewish employees go. The morning of her departure, six SA men took 69.50 RM from her, likely her salary. At first she moved in with her father and then earned money as a maid in a series of households where she was also given a room.

Hildegard was able to stay longer at the home and continue to attend school on the grounds that she was the more talented of the sisters. She stayed at the Paulinenstift until 1939 and afterwards got a place at the Jewish educational camp in Gehringshof where she was to be prepared for her intended emigration. From there she moved to Landwerk Stackelsdorf on 9 July 1941, another training farm where the young people primarily were taught agricultural technologies and to work on the farm. Yet her emigration would never come to pass.

Instead Hildegard worked as a nurse at the Jewish Hospital on Johnsallee. She also lived there until she received her deportation order.

Her father in the meantime had married a second time on 2 Jan. 1941. He wed Erna Meyerson, née Gandzior, from Gleiwitz who worked as a teacher.

Brahmsallee 25 is listed as Georg and Erna Meyerson’s last, freely chosen residence. Stumbling Stones have been laid there for the couple and his two daughters.

Shortly before their deportation however, they had to move to the "Jewish house” at Kielortallee 22. The whole family was deported from Hamburg to Theresienstadt Ghetto on 19 July 1942 on the transport VI/2. Over 800 people in total were on that transport, only 93 of whom survived the Holocaust.

About two months after their arrival in the ghetto, Anneliese Meyerson died on 24 Oct. 1942. Typhoid fever was given as the cause of death on the announcement of her death.

A year and a half later on 9 Jan. 1944, Erna Meyerson also died in Theresienstadt.

Hildegard Meyerson, 21 years old at the time, was deported with her father Georg Meyerson to Auschwitz extermination camp on 9 Oct. 1944 where the two of them probably were killed in a gas chamber.


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


Stand: September 2019
© Lefke Sandrock

Quellen: StaH, 232-5, 1222 (1931-1942), Pflegschaft über das Vermögen der unmündigen Kinder des Georg Meyerson, Vormundschaftswesen; StaH 352-5, 1931 2a 357, Todesbescheinigung; StaH, 314-15 R123/1941, 314-15 R214/1941, Oberfinanzpräsident; www.db.yadvashem.org/names; www.holocaust.cz/de/documents; www.bundesarchiv.de/gedenkbuch; Hamburger Adressbuch; (Zugriff 23.3.2015) Stadtarchiv Schwerin (Blumenthal ) 13.4.2015; Stadtarchiv Mannheim (Hirsch ) 21.4.2015; http://www.jhi.pl/uploads/inventory/file/9/Gemeinde_Gleiwitz_112.pdf (Zugriff 23.3.2015); Hamburger Gesellschaft für jüdische Genealogie e.V., Heft 109 2013/ 4. Quartal, Paulinenstift.