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Adele Levy * 1875

Heinrich-Barth-Straße 10 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

HIER WOHNTE
ADELE LEVY
JG. 1875
EINGEWIESEN 1939
HEILANSTALT LANGENHORN
"VERLEGT" 23.9.1940
BRANDENBURG
ERMORDET 23.9.1940
"AKTION T4"

further stumbling stones in Heinrich-Barth-Straße 10:
Frieda Aron, Sara Aron, Isidor Blankenstein

Adele Levy, born on 7 Dec. 1875 in Hamburg, murdered on 23 Sept. 1940 in the Brandenburg/Havel "euthanasia” killing center

Stolperstein in Hamburg-Rotherbaum, at Heinrich-Barth-Strasse 10

Adele Levy’s father, the lottery collector Benjamin Samuel Levy, born in 1829, came from Gelliehausen near Göttingen. In his second marriage, he was married to Friederika Rothstein, born in 1844, from Sudheim in Prussia (today a part of Northeim/Lower Saxony). The couple registered their marriage in Hamburg on 14 Aug. 1874 and in Hannover on 1 Sept. 1874. Benjamin Samuel had settled in Hamburg years earlier and had already received the certificate of Hamburg civic rights (Bürgerbrief) on 16 Sept. 1859.

The Levy couple had two daughters, Adele, born on 7 Dec. 1875, and Sabine, born on 18 Oct. 1876, both natives of Hamburg. At the time Adele was born, the family lived in Hamburg-Neustadt at Grosser Neumarkt, Hof [yard] 57, at Sabine’s birth at Kleine Drehbahn 8. When Friederika Levy died in May 1879 at the age of 34, Adele was not yet four years old, Sabine three.

Benjamin Samuel Levy remarried. His third wife, Helene Schlomann, born in 1845, came from Malchow in Mecklenburg. The Levy couple must have lived in extremely modest circumstances. Helene Levy’s last address points to this: Schlachterstrasse 40/41, house 3, a residential home built by Marcus Nordheim on his seventieth birthday with 27 rent-free apartments for poor Jewish families.

Adele Levy was admitted to what was then the Alsterdorf Asylum (Alsterdorfer Anstalten) in 1886 at the age of ten. She was probably already severely visually impaired back then. During her time in Alsterdorf, her stepmother Helene passed away on 3 Feb. 1895, and her father Benjamin Samuel Levy on 18 Feb. 1900. By then, the only relative left to her was her sister Sabine, who had become a teacher in the meantime.

Adele Levy remained in Alsterdorf until May 1919. At the request of the Jewish Community, she was then accommodated in the Israelite Siechenheim [infirmary] of the German-Israelitic Community at Schäferkampsallee 29. When she tried to commit suicide on 5 Dec. 1925, she was admitted to the Friedrichsberg State Hospital (Staatskrankenanstalt Friedrichsberg). The Siechenheim refused to take her back so that she remained in Friedrichsberg until 26 Jan. 1927. This was followed by a two-month stay in a care home (presumably Oberaltenallee), from which she was released at her own request with the support of the Jewish Community and given private care.

Adele Levy’s visual impairment had worsened until she went completely blind in the left eye by 1932. A cataract operation was performed on the right eye. At this point, Adele was considered highly weak-sighted. She continued to live in private foster homes where quarrels arose. Adele claimed to have been beaten and doused with water. A female welfare worker reported after a house visit in Oct. 1932 that Adele Levy was described as incompatible and malicious. Her complaints, the worker continued, were unfounded and Adele Levy was not suitable for placement in a family. Nevertheless, through the intercession of the Jewish Community, the welfare office desisted from institutionalization. In 1935, another eye operation was performed, the success of which has not been passed down. In the years that followed, Adele Levy apparently continued to live in various foster families, until a new institutional arrangement was negotiated at the beginning of 1939. Adele wanted to live with her landlady, where she had been staying for three months. She felt well taken care of in the Jewish household, but needed help coping with road traffic. Adele’s landlady, Gertrud Levin, residing at Heinrich-Barth-Strasse 10, expressed herself in a positive way about her, saying that she could definitely keep "Miss Levy” with her, as Adele was calm and orderly, did not bother her at all, and did not create any hassles for her in any other respect. According to her, she had not noticed any unrest, not even delusions. Adele lived in the household of Gertrud and Meta Levin, possibly sisters.

The subtenant and care relationship ended in 1939, after Meta Levin had fled to Britain in Feb. 1939 and Gertrud followed her in June. This again raised the question of Adele Levy’s accommodation. On 3 Aug. 1939, she was admitted to the Hamburg-Langenhorn "sanatorium and nursing home” (Hamburg-Langenhorn "Heil-und Pflegeanstalt”).

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” 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.

After all Jewish patients from the North German institutions had arrived in Langenhorn, they were taken to Brandenburg/Havel on 23 Sept. 1940, together with the Jewish patients who had lived there for some time – including Adele Levy – on a transport comprised of 136 persons overall. On the same day, they were killed with carbon monoxide in the part of the former penitentiary converted into a gas-killing facility. Only one patient, Ilse Herta Zachmann, escaped this fate at first (see corresponding entry).

We do not know whether, and if so, when Adele Levy’s relatives became aware of her death. In all documented notices concerning the deaths of persons murdered in Brandenburg, it was claimed that the person concerned had died in Cholm (Polish: Chelm) east of Lublin. On Adele Levy’s birth register entry, the date of death was indicated as 30 Jan. 1941. Her death had allegedly been registered by the records office Cholm II in the Generalgouvernement [General Government in Poland] under number 333/1941. Those murdered in Brandenburg, however, were never in Cholm/Chelm. 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.

Sabine Levy, Adele’s sister, also died in the Holocaust. She was deported to Auschwitz on 11 July 1942 in a transport comprised of 300 Jewish persons and murdered there. For her, a Stolperstein is located in Isestrasse 21 in Hamburg-Harvestehude.

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

Stand: June 2020
© 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); 332-3 Zivilstandsaufsicht A 217 Geburtsregister Nr. 9202/1875 Adele Levy, B 63 Heiratsregister Nr. 1929/74 Benjamin Samuel Levy/Friederika Rothstein; 332-5 Standesämter 377 Sterberegister Nr. 192/1895 Helene Levy, 465 Sterberegister Nr. 283/1900 Samuel Levy, 1887 Geburtsregister Nr. 4927/1876 Sabine Levy, 7764 Sterberegister Nr. 903/1879 Friederika Levy; 351-14 Arbeits- und Sozialbehörde – Sonderakten 1470 Adele Levy; 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn Abl. 1/1995 Aufnahme-/Abgangsbuch Langenhorn 26.8.1939 bis 27.1.1941; UKE/IGEM, Archiv, Patienten-Karteikarte Adele Levy der Staatskrankenanstalt Friedrichsberg; Stadtarchiv Hannover, Neue Abteilung Bücher (NAB) Nr. 20566 aus 1974, Heiratsregister Benjamin Samuel Levy/Friederike Rothstein.
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