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Gustav Magnus * 1852

Osterstraße 19 (Eimsbüttel, Eimsbüttel)

HIER WOHNTE
GUSTAV MAGNUS
JG. 1852
DEPORTIERT 1942
THERESIENSTADT
ERMORDET 18.3.1943

further stumbling stones in Osterstraße 19:
Gottlieb Magnus, Antonie Magnus

Gustav Magnus, born on 4 Feb. 1852 in Salzhausen, deported to Theresienstadt on 19 July 1942, died there on 18 Mar. 1943

Osterstrasse 19

Gustav Magnus did not arrive in Hamburg until 1936, when he was already an old man aged 84. At that time, he moved in with the family of his son Gottlieb Magnus, who had lost his position as an officer at the Imperial Shipyard in Wilhelmshaven and lived in Hamburg at Osterstrasse 19. (See also the biography of Gottlieb, Margarethe, and Antonie Magnus). The "apartment-sharing community” included, apart from him and his son Gottlieb, the latter’s wife Margarethe, who was already ill with cancer at the time, their daughter Antonie, Margarethe Magnus’ old father Julius Schiff and, somewhat later, Julius Schiff’s granddaughter Eva Hirche, who survived and later wrote down her family memories.

Gustav Menke Gottlieb Magnus, as he was called by his full name, was born in Salzhausen, then part of the Kingdom of Hannover, in 1852. His parents were Gottlieb Magnus (born in 1824 in Oldendorf I, today Suderburg), and Rosette, née Cohn (born in 1821 in Salzhausen). Gustav had seven siblings. The family subsequently moved from Salzhausen to Fintel and later to Hannover.

As a young man, Gustav Magnus lived for a time in the Netherlands, initially in Vlaardingen, where he worked as a photographer in 1878/1879. A business card read, "German Photography Gustav Magnus Company Lorjé & Co. Brielle & Vlaardingen.” His wife Cato Lorjé (born in 1852 in Rotterdam) came from a family of photographers. Her mother Sophia Lorjé-Samson had been mentioned as a photographer in Rotterdam as early as 1869. Cato’s brother Izaak Lorjé had apparently been active in the photography business in Rotterdam and Leyden since 1868. He and his wife Caroline Lorjé, née Mendelson, lived in Hamburg Eimsbüttel at the turn of the century, operating the company Lorjé & Lorjé Stereoscope en gros. Later they found their final resting place in the Ohlsdorf Jewish Cemetery.

Gustav Magnus and his wife returned to Hannover via a stopover in Bergen op Zoom. Five children were born in the marriage, namely Berta (married name Klinnert, born in 1876 in Linden), Louis (born in 1878 in Rotterdam), Gottlieb (born in 1883 in Hannover), Sophie (married name Levi, born in 1888 in Hannover), and Sally (born in 1891 in Hannover).

In 1897, the family relocated to Kassel, where Cato Magnus died in 1929 at the age of 76. Gustav Magnus and his oldest son Louis no longer worked there as photographers but traded in shoes.

In 1934, Gustav Magnus left Kassel and moved to Langenhagen to live with his son Sally (today, the residential address at the time on Stader Landstrasse is part of Hannover). Only two years later, he moved to Hamburg Eimsbüttel to join his son Gottlieb.

The Magnus family, however, had to leave the apartment on Osterstrasse before their deportation in 1942 and they were quartered in the "Jews’ house” ("Judenhaus”) at Bundesstrasse 43, the former John R. Warburg-Stift, a residential home. Gottlieb and Antonie were deported from this address to Auschwitz on 11 July 1942, while Gustav had to relocate from the "Jews’ house” at Laufgraben 37, the former orphanage, to Theresienstadt only a week later.

A relative from Würzburg had also been deported there. This relative, Bernhard Behrens, survived and later emigrated to New York. On 26 Mar. 1957, he wrote to the attorney of Edith Magnus, a daughter of Louis Magnus: "... For my part, I arrived in Theresienstadt on 23 Sept. 1942, and I was enlisted for work at the local cemetery immediately afterward. I had access to the registry and searched for the names of relatives. In doing so, I also found the name of Gustav Magnus, and that he was buried in a mass grave. He died shortly before my arrival in the autumn of 1942. I also learned the same thing from my colleagues in the funeral service with whom I lived together, and that he lived in the same room in the end, and was in the best of health and mental condition until his death... Soon after, from Hamburg his daughter-in-law Grete Magnus arrived as well, who was severely paralyzed, and whom I visited often until her death... ”

Bernhard Behrens wrote in this letter that Gustav Magnus had died in Theresienstadt in the fall of 1942, but according to the Memorial Book of the Federal Archives, he did not die until 18 Mar. 1943.

Gustav’s son Louis Magnus, his second wife Johanna, née Narewczewitz, son Sally Magnus and his wife Hulda, née Magnus, as well as daughter Sophie Levi, née Magnus, and her son, Viktor Heinz Levi, were murdered, as were other members of the family.

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

Stand: December 2020
© Heinz-Jörgen Kunze-von Hardenberg; Susanne Lohmeyer

Quellen: 5; 8; HAB 1905; Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, HStAW Abt. 518 Nr. 67419, Entschädigungsakte Gustav und Louis Magnus; https://www.groeschlerhaus.eu/quellen/inhaltsseiten/eva-basnizki-erinnerungen-eines-mischlings-1-grades-an-jever-und-hamburg-1933-1945/30.7.2018; http://www.online-ofb.de/famreport.php?ofb-juden nw&ID=I1743&nachname=Magnus&modus=&lang=hu 30.7.2018; https://rkd.nl/nl/explore/artists/record?query=izaak+lorj%C3%A9&start=0 https://kobra.bibliothek.uni-kassel.de/bitstream/urn:nbn:de:hebis:34-2013121644679/3/SchicksaleDerJudenKassels.pdf.txt 30.7.2018; https://ak-regionalgeschichte.de/judenverfolgung-langenhagen/ 30.7.3018;
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