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Martha Levy, geb. Golschmidt, 1926
© Ian Goldsmith

Martha Levy (née Goldschmidt) * 1883

Kielortallee 22 (Eimsbüttel, Eimsbüttel)

HIER WOHNTE
MARTHA LEVY
GEB. GOLDSCHMIDT
JG. 1883
DEPORTIERT 1941
ERMORDET IN
RIGA

further stumbling stones in Kielortallee 22:
Martha Brager, Frieda Brager, Werner Brager, Siegmund Brager, Liesel Brager, Bela Brager, Joel Falk, Hermann René Falk, Dina Hähnlein, Julius Hähnlein, Heinrich (Henoch) Herbst, Karoline (Caroline) Herbst, Helene Horwitz, Alfred Levy, Manuel (Emil) Neugarten, Herta Neugarten

Martha Levy, née Goldschmidt, born on 15 Sept. 1883 in Hamburg, deported to Riga-Jungfernhof on 6 Dec. 1941
Alfred Levy, born on 25 Dec. 1917 in Hamburg, murdered in the Auschwitz extermination camp on 25 Jan. 1943

Kielortallee 22

When Martha Goldschmidt moved with her mother and siblings to Kielortallee 22 in May 1908, this was would also become her last address in Hamburg.

Her father, Aron Goldschmidt (born on 22 Dec. 1840 in Emden, died on 28 Jan. 1903 in Hamburg), who was an independent merchant working in the commission business, and her mother, Annie, born on 25 Apr. 1850 in London under the maiden name of Newstadt (died on 8 July 1929 in Hamburg), had been registered as residing at Kraienkamp 18, House 2 since 17 Mar. 1892.

The home was a so-called "free apartment” in which the foundation by the same name, established in 1868 by Berend Oppenheimer, provided accommodation for needy Jewish families. This circumstance leads to the conclusion that the Goldschmidts probably had a low income. As the only criterion for admission to the residential home, the founder had stipulated proof of a proper religious way of living.

Due to extensive redevelopment plans in Hamburg-Neustadt, the properties of the foundation’s complex had to be abandoned. Alternatively, a new five-story building was constructed in 1907/08 at Kielortallee 22, which featured 23 two- and three-room apartments and also accommodated a synagogue extending from the second floor to the third floor. The property, which from 1941 onward, like many other Jewish residences, also served as a "Jews’ house” ("Judenhaus”), weathered the air raids almost unscathed. (In the first years after the end of the war, it served as a place of worship for the Jews who had returned to Hamburg and for the newly founded Jewish Community in Hamburg until 1960. Today it is a privately run residential building).

A "Dienstkarte L” ("service card L”) filed for the then 16-year-old Martha reveals that between 1899 and 1908, she lived as a nanny and "support,” i.e., domestic help, both with various families at changing addresses and occasionally with her parents. The last entry of her service card contains the reference of Martha’s move to Antwerp. A registration card on file later shows that she, by then a cook, had moved back to her parents’ home on the fourth floor as of 1 Apr. 1912.

On 24 Apr. 1914, Martha married the accountant Rudolf Levy, born in Hamburg on 21 Aug. 1884. When he returned from the First World War disabled, the couple managed to move into an apartment on the second floor of the house at Kielortallee 22. One may assume that Martha, who in the meantime also worked as an accountant, supported her husband in his work. Although they lived in precarious economic circumstances and in limited space, the couple adopted Alfred Goldschmidt, the son from the first marriage of Martha’s brother Barthold.

Barthold, who was born in Hamburg on 20 Apr. 1893, and Amanda Anna Martha Müller, born in Altona on 12 Nov. 1891 and baptized a Protestant, entered into marital union on 31 Aug. 1917 at the Altona registry office. However, the good fortune did not last long, and the couple was divorced on 16 Aug. 1921. Under the difficult economic conditions of the recession years, Barthold, who worked as a sales representative and "commission traveler” for men’s wear, earned a rather moderate income that hardly secured his everyday livelihood. Perhaps he was financially unable to raise Alfred alone.

(Barely two years after the divorce, on 4 June 1923, Amanda resumed her maiden name Müller. Another eight years passed until she married Henry Siegel, who had been born in Hamburg on 23 Dec. 1880, on 16 June 1931. Presumably, he was the owner of the "Carl. Jul. Klein” Company and he later ran a commercial agency for cigars. They resided together at the addresses of Immenbusch 21 and, since 1940, Hütten 85. Henry Siegel died on 6 May 1964; Amanda followed him on 16 Nov. 1967).

Barthold married two more times. The marriage concluded on 9 July 1924, with Laura (née Freid), a Jewish woman born on 28 May 1892 in Smarczow, Poland, produced the sons Salomon Robert, born on 19 May 1925, and Bruno, born on 24 Nov. 1926. Both were born in Hamburg. When Laura Goldschmidt fell seriously ill in 1931 and subsequently died on 2 Jan. 1933 at St. Georg General Hospital, the family broke up. Barthold, who was increasingly in financial distress due to high medical bills and rent arrears, could no longer afford the daily maintenance needs for his two sons. As a Jew with no prospect of a permanent job, he had been unemployed without interruption since 1933 and he received welfare benefits from the welfare authorities until 1937. In response to the dire need, the children were placed with relatives. Thus, Martha temporarily took in her nephew Bruno as well.

Barthold Goldschmidt’s third marriage did not bring him luck either: Not only did his children find no place in this instance either and had to be put up in an orphanage, his wife Ester Zirkmann also accused him of "racial defilement” ("Rassenschande”), of "concubinage” with an "Aryan” woman. In the divorce decree dated 26 Mar. 1934, Barthold was found guilty of "adultery” and subsequently sentenced to two years in prison on 10 Sept. 1937 by the Hamburg Regional Court (Landgericht) based on the "Nuremberg Laws” [on race] dating from 1935.

Immediately after his release from the Fuhlsbüttel police prison, he was taken back into "protective custody” ("Schutzhaft”) on 3 July 1939, and transferred to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp on 31 Aug. 1939, where he died of "physical weakness” on 29 Mar. 1940. (www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de Biography Barthold Goldschmidt) (Ester, born on 10 Dec. 1900 in Naumiestis, Russia, was deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto on 15 July1942, transported to Auschwitz on 23 Jan. 1943, and murdered there on 23 Sept. 1943).

Alfred Goldschmidt, born on 25 Dec. 1917 in Hamburg, meanwhile adopted in 1924 by his aunt Martha and uncle Rudolf, assumed their last name of Levy. He later completed an apprenticeship as a painter.

Arrested by the Gestapo the night of the November Pogrom on 10 Nov. 1938, he remained interned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp until 17 Jan. 1939. After his release, he emigrated to the Netherlands.

There he first arrived in Franeker in the Province of Friesland in May, where he joined a kibbutz, a branch of the Hachshara. This Zionist-influenced institution offered preparation for settlement in Palestine. There he began training as a farmer. In Oct. 1939, he was committed to the Apeldoornsche Bos psychiatric institution. The clinic, founded in 1909, treated mainly behaviorally disturbed and disabled Jewish youths until its closure in 1943. At this place, he received medical treatment until Apr. 1940; we know nothing about the causes. Afterward, Alfred stayed in Amsterdam for two years, until he had to be admitted again to Apeldoornsche Bos in Apr. 1942.

When the German Wehrmacht closed the facility at Zutphensche Straat 106, he was loaded into freight cars together with 900 to 1200 other patients (the numbers vary in the different sources) and taken to the Westerbork camp on 22 Jan. 1943. At this point, the doctors and nurses who were needed in Westerbork had to get off the train. Only 50 Jewish nurses, who had been assured that they would be able to return to the Netherlands, accompanied the "special transport of the sick” to the Auschwitz extermination camp. Many of the previously mistreated patients, some in straitjackets, some exposed to the winter cold naked, did not survive the inhuman conditions on the transport. All of the others, including Alfred Levy, were murdered immediately after the train arrived on 25 Jan. 1943.

The 50 nurses also died in Auschwitz.
Overall, 75 % of the 140,000 Jews living in the Netherlands in 1940, that is, 107,000 persons, were killed.

We do not know whether Alfred had contact with his relatives in Hamburg from the kibbutz and whether he knew of his uncle’s death. Rudolf Levy died in Hamburg on 28 Oct. 1941. He certainly did not learn about the fate of his Aunt Martha. Like her sister Ella, married name Lange, she received the deportation order to the "East” in early Dec. 1941. The transport departed from the Hannoversche Bahnhof train station on 6 Dec. 1941, headed for the Riga Ghetto, and reached its destination three days later, on 9 Dec. 1941. However, the SS did not take the occupants of the train to the Riga Ghetto, but to the nearby Jungfernhof farming estate, because in the Riga Ghetto there was still an "evacuation operation” going on, i.e., the shooting of 27,500 Latvian Jews.

Under the primitive living conditions at Jungfernhof, hundreds of the Jews who had been sent there from Hamburg and other cities starved and froze to death. Approximately 1,800 Jews who had survived the winter were shot in the spring of 1942 in "Operation Dünamünde” ("Aktion Dünamünde”). Only 35 people from Hamburg reportedly survived this deportation.

The exact time and circumstances of Martha Levy’s death are not known. She was officially declared dead as of midnight on 8 May 1945, by ruling of the Hamburg District Court (Amtsgericht) dated 14 Sept. 1953.

The proceeds from the auction of her furniture and household effects left behind, as well as any remaining balance in her account – a total of 429.42 RM (reichsmark) – were transferred to the "German Reich” by the tax authorities.


Details concerning the fate of Martha Goldschmidt’s other siblings:
Paul Aron Philip Goldschmidt, born on 19 Dec. 1874, was deported to Theresienstadt on 24 Feb. 1943. He died there on 21 Dec. 1943 (www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de, biography of Paul Goldschmidt)

Sofie/Sofia/Sophia Goldschmidt, born on 23 Feb. 1877 in Hamburg, died on 28 Dec. 1931 in Hamburg, had married Max Bukofzer, born on 14 Dec. 1871 in Culm in West Prussia, died on 7 Nov. 1940 in the Jewish Hospital in Hamburg. The marriage concluded on 22 Dec. 1898, with the "advertising distributor” Bukofzer, who had served as a soldier "in the field” from 1914 to 1918, produced two children, Arthur, born on 22 May 1899, and Bertha, born on 20 Feb. 1903. Both natives of Hamburg, they survived the war and persecution.

Ella Goldschmidt, married name Lange, born on 24 Feb. 1878 in Hamburg, was deported to Riga-Jungfernhof on 6 Dec. 1941 and she perished there.
Ella Lange was declared dead as of midnight on 8 May 1945 by a ruling of the Hamburg District Court dated 19 Nov. 1953. (www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de, biography of Ella Lange).

Alfred Goldschmidt, born in Hamburg on 19 July 1880, an accountant by profession, married to the non-Jewish woman Martha Clara Wilhelmine Härtel, born in Mallwitz on 23 Aug. 1885, resided at Stellingerweg 2. Alfred was killed during static battles on the Yser River in Flanders on 19 May 1916, having served as a lance corporal of the territorial reserve (Landwehr) in the 11th Company of Reserve-Replacement Infantry Regiment No. 4, "Casualty No. 554.”

Elisa Goldschmidt, married name Groth, born on 22 Feb. 1882 in Hamburg, was deported to the Auschwitz extermination camp on 11 July 1942. She was declared dead as of midnight on 8 May 1945 by ruling of the Hamburg District Court dated 14 Sept. 1953. (www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de, biography of Elisa Groth).

Stolpersteine have also been laid for the other family members deported from Hamburg. The family members who died a natural death found their last resting place in the Hamburg-Ohlsdorf Jewish Cemetery on Ilandkoppel.

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

Stand: December 2020
© Michael Steffen

Quellen: 5; StaH 213-11 Landgericht Strafsachen _7076/37; StaH 213-13 Landgericht Wiedergutmachung _2829; _6594; StaH 231-3 A 12 Bd. 51, Nr. 38833; StaH 231-7, Handels- u. Genossenschaftsregister _A1 Bd. 57, A13587; StaH 332-3 Zivilstandsaufsicht _A125 Nr.990; StaH 332-5 Melderegister 1928/1000/1878; _332-5 2058/4391/1883; _332-5 6272/3770/1891; _332-5 2313/1555/1893; _332-5 2808/978/1893; _332-5 2910/1398/1898; _332-5 6469/201/1909; _332-5 8697/116/1914; _332-5 8037/562/1916; _332-5 6034/464/1917; _332-5 6080/548/1924; _332-5 981/562/1931; _332-5 1004/1933; _332-5 8169/543/1940; StaH 332-8 Meldewesen Film Nr. 6140; StaH 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung _5811; _7430; _15317; StaH 741-4 A254; Standesamt Oranienburg Nr. 1684/40; Bundesarchiv Gedenkbuch; E-Mail Josè Martin, Kampwesterbork, Niederlande am 16.2.2016; www.gerechte-der-pflege.net/wiki/index.php/Apeldoornsche_Bos (zugegriffen am 20.2.2016); www.joodsmonument.nl/page/408346?lang=en (zugegriffen am 18.2.2016); www.oud-apeldoorn.nl/straten-a-z/z/zutphensestraat---het-apeldoornsche-bos (zugegriffen am 9.10.2017); www.dbnl.org/tekst/pres003onde01_01/pres003onde01_01_0027.php (zugegriffen am 9.10.2017); www.canonsociaalwerk.eu/nl_han/details.php?cps=9&canon_id=302 (zugegriffen am 9.10.2017); www.dasjuedischehamburg.de (zugriffen am 27.3.2016); www.vaandaagindegeschiedenis.nl/22januari (zugegriffen am 19.3.2017); www.wikipedia.org/wiki/206"Division_(DeutschesKaiserreich) (zugegriffen am 23.1.2016); www.denkmalprojekt.org/verlustlisten/rjf_wk1.html (zugegriffen am 23.1.2016); Gedenkbuch der gefallenen deutschen jüdischen Soldaten des Reichsbunds jüdischer Frontsoldaten; diverse Adressbücher Hamburg; Gedenkbuch des Bundes; Gottwaldt/Schulle, "Judendeportationen", S. 111, 113, 125f., 221; Stein, "Jüdische Baudenkmäler", S. 114f.
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