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Gert Grossmann * 1918

Andreasstraße 16 (Hamburg-Nord, Winterhude)

HIER WOHNTE
GERT GROSSMANN
JG. 1918
DEPORTIERT 1941
ERMORDET IN
LODZ / LITZMANNSTADT

further stumbling stones in Andreasstraße 16:
Marianne Grossmann, Ernst Joseph Grossmann, Heinz Grossmann, Alice Insel

Alice Gertrud Insel, née Münzer, born on 19 Sept. 1882 in Frankfurt/Main, murdered on 23 Sept. 1940 in the Brandenburg/Havel euthanasia killing center

Marianne Grossmann, née Münzer, born on 2 Feb. 1883 in Frankfurt/Main, deported on 25 Oct. 1941 to "Litzmannstadt” (Lodz)

Ernst Josef Grossmann, born on 1 Dec. 1882 in Vienna, deported on 25 Oct. 1941 to "Litzmannstadt” (Lodz), deported further on 15 May 1942 to Chelmno, murdered

Gert Grossmann, born on 4 Aug. 1918 in Hamburg, deported on 25 Oct. 1941 to "Litzmannstadt” (Lodz)

Heinz Eugen Grossmann, born on 22 July 1913 in Hamburg, deported on 25 Oct. 1941 to "Litzmannstadt” (Lodz)

Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Winterhude, at Andreasstrasse 16

Alice Münzer, later married name Insel, was born on 19 Mar. 1882 as the oldest of the four daughters of Eugen and Adele Münzer, née Nahm. The parents were of the Jewish faith. Following Alice, Marianne was born on 24 Feb 1883. Adele and Eugen Münzer did not marry until 1888. Erna was born on 26 June 1889 and Lucie Frieda on 5 Jan. 1897. All children were natives of Frankfurt/Main.

Alice’s mother, Adele Münzer, was born in Frankfurt on 19 Oct. 1865. Alice’s father, the merchant Eugen Münzer, passed away on 29 Jan. 1902. After the death of her husband, Adele Münzer settled with her daughters in Hamburg. She lived at Husumer Strasse 21 in Hoheluft-Ost.

Alice Münzer married Adolph Insel from Berne in today’s Oldenburg administrative district, a cloth merchant born in 1866 who had been living in Hamburg for many years. In 1916 or 1917, Alice Insel was twice admitted to the Friedrichsberg "lunatic asylum” ("Irrenanstalt Friedrichsberg”). In 1918, she moved to the Villa Wilhelma in Ülsby near Schleswig, a private "home for women with emotional disorders, nervous diseases, and a need for supervision,” whose admission capacity was limited to 12 home residents. The type of accommodation points to her state of health. Apparently, her family and husband were so well off materially that her stay in this upscale institution could be financed.

The only detail known about the marriage of Adolph and Alice Insel is that the union remained childless. Adolph Insel died on 25 Aug. 1922 in Hamburg at Husumer Strasse 7. In 1926, Alice Insel left the quite privileged home in Ülsby. Financial reasons would not have been decisive, because Alice Insel still owned property from the inheritance of her deceased husband. After the death of Adolph Insel, Alice’s brother-in-law Raphael Cohn took over the care of her.

Alice was then readmitted to Friedrichsberg, by this time renamed "State Hospital.” From Dec. 1930 to May 1934, was a patient at the Hamburg-Langenhorn State Hospital (Staatskrankenanstalt Hamburg-Langenhorn). Subsequently, she was then transferred to the Oberaltenallee care home (Versorgungsheim Oberaltenallee) and in Oct. 1938, to the Averhoffstrasse care home.

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.

Alice Island arrived in Langenhorn on 18 Sept. 1940. Together with 135 other patients, she was taken to Brandenburg/Havel on 23 Sept. 1940. On the same day, people were driven into the gas chamber and murdered 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).

We do not know whether, and if so, when relatives became aware of Alice Insel’s death. In all documented death notices, it was claimed that the person concerned had died in Chelm (Polish) or Cholm (German). Those murdered in Brandenburg, however, were never in Chelm/Cholm, 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.

Adele Münzer did not have to experience the deportation of her daughter any more. She passed away on 1 Jan. 1935. Her last address was Oderfelderstrasse 8 with Simon.

Alice’s sister Erna Münzer married the merchant Raphael Cohn, born on 25 Mar. 1873 in Znin in the then Prussian administrative district of Bromberg (today Bydgoszcz) in the Province of Posen (today in Poland). Raphael Cohn was owner of the Wilhelm Sonnenberg Company at Grossneumarkt 24-26, a dry goods store. In addition to the main store in Hamburg, there were branches in Lübeck and Harburg. Raphael Cohn employed about ten people in Hamburg. The Hamburg shop included a large warehouse with many adjoining rooms, valuable inventory, and a substantial stock of goods. After the windows had been smashed during the November Pogrom and the stock had been damaged, the two branches were closed on 10 Nov. 1938. Six Gestapo officials shut down Hamburg’s main store, threatening the owner’s health and life. They detained Raphael Cohn for several hours. A so-called trustee, the auditor Friedrich Greve, liquidated the company on behalf of the Administration Office for Commerce, Shipping, and Industry (Verwaltung für Handel, Schiffahrt und Gewerbe). The Cohn couple last lived at Eppendorfer Landstrasse 48 and fled to the USA with their two daughters Vera and Ilse on 30 July 1939.

Lucie Frieda Münzer married Kurt Hermann Lichtenstein, born 1893 in Gadebusch/ Mecklenburg. The couple resided in Hamburg. Hermann Lichtenstein ran a textile agency at Stadthausbrücke 15, from around 1930 at Neuer Wall 50. The family, which included daughter Marion Hanna, born in 1927, lived at Beneckestrasse 2 for many years. The Lichtenstein family left Germany in 1935 and then lived in the USA.

Marianne Münzer married Josef Grossmann, a businessman born on 1 Dec. 1882 in Vienna. He traded, like his brother-in-law Raphael Cohn, in dry goods at Grossneumarkt 20, later he ran a perfume production at Dorotheenstrasse 10. This marriage produced Heinz Eugen Grossmann, born on 22 July 1913 and baptized, as well as Gert Grossmann, born on 4 Aug. 1918, both natives of Hamburg. The family lived for many years at Andreasstrasse 16 in Winterhude. Marianne’s mother Adele had also resided here for a while.

In the early 1930s, Josef Grossmann had been sentenced for "fraudulent bankruptcy” to one year in prison, which he had served by June 1934. This was followed by a probation period until 15 June 1938. At this time, his wife Marianne took over the company. The 1939 Hamburg directory identifies Marianne Grossmann for the first time as the owner of her husband’s perfume production. He was imprisoned in the Fuhlsbüttel police prison and released from detention in 1941. The beginning and reason of the detention are not known. Josef Grossmann helped other Jews emigrate from Germany. The flight of his son Gert to the USA, which was already noted on his Jewish religious tax (Kultussteuer) file card for 19 Nov. 1939, failed though. Marianne and Josef Grossmann as well as their sons Heinz Eugen and Gert Grossmann were deported to the "Litzmannstadt” (Lodz) Ghetto on 25 Oct. 1941; Josef was deported further to Chelmno on 15 May 1942. None of them survived. In memory of these four persons and Alice Insel, Stolpersteine lie in Hamburg-Winterhude at Andreasstrasse 16.

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

© Ingo Wille

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; AB; 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); 314-15 Oberfinanzpräsident R 61/1940 (Alice Insel), R 616/1940 Alice Insel; 332-5 Standesämter 8130 Sterberegister Nr. 5/1935 Adele Münzer, 9797 Sterberegister Nr. 1938/1922 Adolph Aron Münzer; 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung 2080 Erna Cohn, 2979 Bertha Erna Cohn, 6589 Marianne Grossmann, 11904 Bertha Cohn, 19403 Lucie Lichtenstein; 351-12 I Amt für Wohlfahrsanstalten 19 Juden in Anstalten; 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn Abl. 1/1995 Aufnahme-/Abgangsbuch Langenhorn 26.8.1939 bis 27.1.1941; Institut für Stadtgeschichte, Frankfurt a. M., Geburtsregister Nr. 939/1882 Alice Münzer; Auskünfte des Sanatoriums Dr. Schulze, Ülsby.
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