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Alma Israel * 1913

Grindelallee 81 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

HIER WOHNTE
ALMA ISRAEL
JG. 1913
DEPORTIERT 1941
LODZ / LITZMANNSTADT
ZWANGSARBEITERLAGER
POSEN-ANTONIN 1941
ERMORDET 18.3.1943

further stumbling stones in Grindelallee 81:
Martin Cobliner, Chaim David Kellmann, Leni Evi Kellmann, Rosa Emma Kellmann

Alma Israel, born on 22.7.1913 in Hamburg, deported on 25.10.1941 to Lodz Ghetto, further deported on 12.11.1941 to the forced labor camp for Jews in Posen-Antonin, murdered on 18.3.1943 in Posen

Grindelallee 81

Alma Israel was the youngest child of the married couple Aron Eduard Israel (born 9.6.1863) and Henriette, née Isaac (born 22.2.1873). Her parents had married in Hamburg on June 6, 1907. Both had grown up in Jewish families in Hamburg's Neustadt, then the main residential area of Hamburg's Jews.

Aron Eduard Israel, who called himself "Adolph", had married Sali Kohn (born 2.2.1862 in Neustadt/Hungary) in Hamburg on May 12, 1892 in his first marriage. The daughter of a rabbi was still living in Berlin at the time. The Israel couple lived at various addresses in Hamburg's Neustadt, most recently at Markusstraße 23 until 1902, when they moved to the Grindelviertel to Rentzelstraße 11-13, Haus 3, at Friedrich-Wilhelm-Platz. Aron Eduard Israel, who had previously given his professional activities as "Commis" and "Handelsmann," now had himself listed in the Hamburg address book as a "Privatkoch" (private cook).

Sali Israel gave birth to three children, all of whom died very young: Eduard (1.7.1899-23.11.1910) at age 11 in the Alsterdorf institutions, Rosa (8.2.1901-2.12.1901) at 10 months (her twin brother already at birth), and Frida (18.7.1903-31.7.1907) at age 4. Sali Israel also died early, already on 17.6.1906 at the age of only 44 in the Marienkrankenhaus in Hamburg.

On June 6, 1907, Aron Eduard Israel entered into a second marriage with Henriette Isaac, who was also Jewish. She had been born in Hamburg as one of twelve children of the butcher Isaac Joseph Isaac (born 28.2.1834, death 19.12.1892) and the midwife Pauline, née Levin (born 6.1.1841, death 4.12.1907). (Henriette Isaac was the sister of the legendary vocal humorists Ludwig (born 4.12.1867, death 8.3.1955), Leopold (born 6.6.1869, death 16.5.1926) and James (born 2.12.1870, death 3.1.1943), who performed under the stage name "Wolf-Trio," or "Wolf-Duo," "Gebrüder Wolf," beginning in 1895. (See James Wolf www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de).

Henriette Israel was a cook and had lived at Hansastraße 63 either as a subtenant or as a domestic servant with her employers before her marriage. Her daughter Carola Isaac, born before marriage, had been born on 14.4.1899 in the maternity hospital founded in 1795 for impecunious unmarried pregnant women at Pastorenstraße 15/16. She received the family name Israel in January 1914. They were followed by their joint children: Paul James (born 1.2.1908), Doris Margot (born 10.3.1909) and Herbert Joseph (born 17.6.1911), and finally the youngest, Alma (born 22.7.1913). Beginning in 1909, her parents operated a "cooking institute" on the first floor of their apartment.

In 1911, the Israel family moved to Kielortallee 24 into the Oppenheimer-Stift, which had been built for needy Jewish families. Aron Eduard Israel suffered from epileptic seizures, which certainly limited his ability to work.

On May 17, 1914, Aron Eduard Israel became a widower once again. As he stated, he was employed as a wage servant at that time. Henriette Israel died of pneumonia and pleurisy at the age of 41 in the Jewish Community Hospital. Alma, the youngest, was only nine months old when her mother died.
(Aron Eduard Israel died 17 years later on October 28, 1931, in the Friedrichsberg State Hospital after a stroke and was buried next to his first wife in the Jewish Cemetery in Ohlsdorf.)

Alma Israel, like her three siblings, grew up in an orphanage after the death of her mother. At the age of 15, she was dismissed from the third grade of elementary school (equivalent to today's sixth grade). She then worked for one and a half years as a housemaid (Dienstmädchen) in Eisenach. Then she was sent to the Idstein Heilerziehungsanstalt in Taunus for four and a half years and from there back to the "Paulinenstift", the orphanage for girls run by the Jewish Community in Hamburg.

Then she worked as a domestic servant and apparently lived with her respective employers. On her Jewish Community cultural tax card, addresses in well-off residential areas such as Klosterallee 4 near Bachrach are also noted (the widow Regina Bachrach ran a boarding house there). In the meantime, she also worked in the summer months in Wyk/Föhr in the recreation home for Jewish children opened by the "Jewish Women's Association" in 1927. According to her own statements, she had learned the profession of "Plätterin" (ironer).

On June 29, 1935, at the age of 21, Alma Israel was sterilized at the Eppendorf University Hospital on the basis of a medical diagnosis of "congenital imbecility" in accordance with the law on the "Prevention of Hereditary Diseases" of July 14, 1933, and was released from the hospital after eight days.

On November 28, 1935, the Langenhorn State Hospital admitted her "because of a depressive condition." As she stated, she felt overworked and also had a "terrible longing" for her sister Doris Margot, who at that time was working in Aachen at Horst-Wesselstraße 87 (today Kalverbenden) as a housekeeper. In this state of mind she had expressed "I can't go on". This was apparently interpreted by her employer as an intention to commit suicide. Alma Israel is described in her Langenhorn medical records as calm, friendly and "helpful" (helpfully). On December 7, 1935, she was discharged from the institution as "completely balanced."

From July to September 1936, she checked out from Hamburg to Bad Segeberg. There, too, was a rest home for needy Jewish children, the "Sidonie-Werner-Heim". From March to April 1937 she lived in Würzburg, where her sister Doris Margot Israel had been working since July 1936 as a house officer and housekeeper at Dürerstraße 20 in the Israelitisches Kranken- und Pfründnerhaus (Pfründnerhäuser: small residential homes).

After the May 1939 census, Alma Israel was living in Hamburg again, now at Grindelallee 81 with Max Israel. (A Stolperstein was also laid at this address.) He, who was probably not related to her, was deported to Minsk on November 18, 1941 (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de).
According to the deportation list, Alma Israel was last registered as a worker at Sedanstraße 26 with Feilmann (Hugo Feilmann was deported to Minsk on November 8, 1941, see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de). However, another address was noted on her tax card of the Jewish Community: Rappstraße 6 at Neumann's (see Fanny Neumann, www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de). Together with the Neumann family, Alma Israel received orders to report to the lodge house at Moorweide on October 24, 1941.

They were deported to the Lodz Ghetto, which had been renamed "Litzmannstadt" by the Nazis, on the first large transport that left Hamburg on October 25, 1941, from the Hanover train station at Lohseplatz. Her half-sister Carola Israel from Bornstraße 8, near Blumenthal (the couple Markus and Jenny Blumenthal, née Bandmann, were murdered in the Chelmno/ Kulmhof extermination camp in May 1942) had also received the "evacuation order" for that day. However, her name had been removed from the deportation list. Carola Israel had tried to take her own life with Veronal tablets (see below).

A few weeks after her arrival in Lodz, Alma Israel was sent to forced labor outside the ghetto on November 12, 1941. She was sent to the forced labor camp Posen-Antonin (also Antoninek) in the Reichsgau Wartheland (today Poland), where the prisoners worked in the civil engineering office for the construction of the Posen-Frankfurt/Oder highway. The chronicle of the Lodz ghetto states: "264 persons among the new arrivals went to Germany for work in the course of the November transports. Among them were 20 women. Lots were drawn in the quarters to determine the order of those destined for transport."

Under what circumstances Alma Israel perished in Posen (Poznań) on March 18, 1943, is not known. According to the Yad Vashem Memorial in Israel, she is believed to have been buried in the Catholic Cemetery in Górzyn.

We know about Alma's brother Joseph Herbert Israel that he spent his school years in the Jewish Children's Home at Lützowstraße 35-37 in Cologne and subsequently attended the "Israelite Horticultural School" in Ahlem near Hanover for one year (an educational institution for horticulture and crafts). At the age of 15, he was apprenticed to the master butcher Isak Stern (born 24.2.1885, deported to the Warsaw Ghetto on March 31, 1942) in Abterode in the district of Eschwege. After completing his apprenticeship, Joseph Herbert Israel returned to Hamburg in 1927 and worked as a journeyman butcher in the butcher shop of Emanuel Hamburger at Hoheluftchaussee 21 until slaughtering (ritual slaughtering) was banned in May 1933.
After the closure of the business, Joseph Herbert Israel could no longer find work in his profession and had to do "support work" as a welfare recipient. His marriage to the non-Jewish Mathilde Buchert, contracted in November 1933, was later divorced at an unknown date. On June 14, 1938, Joseph Herbert Israel was arrested as part of the "June Action" at Grindelallee 81, at his "sleeping place" with the widow Rosa Abé, née Lazarus (born 10.3.1889, she survived the Theresienstadt ghetto) and taken to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. After his release, which was connected with the condition to leave Germany immediately, he took care of the necessary formalities of his emigration.
In an application to the Foreign Exchange Office in Hamburg dated March 23, 1939, Joseph Herbert Israel wrote: "Due to the insignificance of my removal goods and refraining from an examination by the Customs Investigation Office, I request that a clearance certificate be issued to me, since my departure must begin on April 9, 1939."
Joseph Herbert Israel fled to Shanghai, since no visa was required there. In Shanghai, he enlisted in the Foreign Legion for the French colonial territory of Indochina. In the summer of 1941, he managed to leave Shanghai for Palestine via India and Lebanon. Joseph Herbert Israel later returned to Hamburg. He died in Hamburg on October 15, 1962.

His brother Paul James Israel also succeeded in emigrating to Shanghai, together with his wife Irma, née Elias (b04n 20.3.1908), and daughter Helga (born 2.4.1937), (see David and Theresia Elias, www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de). Paul and Irma had married in Hamburg on April 25, 1935. The art and landscape gardener was subjected to double persecution because of his illegal political activity as a member of the Red Front Fighters' League (RFB) and as a Jew. His first arrest took place at the beginning of February 1934, and another on June 16, 1938. Irma Israel had tried in vain to obtain entry visas for Paraguay, and so their only option was to flee to Shanghai on March 15, 1939. In 1943, like all German-Jewish emigrants living in Shanghai, they were ghettoized. In 1947 they were able to leave for the USA. Paul Israel died at the age of 63 on June 21, 1971.

The sister Doris Margot Israel had attended a household school after her school days at the Israelitische Tochterschule (Jewish girl’s school) in Karolinenstraße. On her tax card of the Jewish Community with the address Grindelberg 76 was noted "resigned 13.1.1933 to Aachen". As already reported, Doris Margot Israel worked in an old people's home in Aachen at Horst-Wesselstraße 84 (today Kalverbenden) and was then registered in Würzburg at Dürerstraße 20 in the Israelitisches Kranken- und Pfründnerhaus founded in 1885. In February 1939 she intended to emigrate to Palestine, but her plan failed.
On November 29, 1941, she was deported to Riga from the Nuremberg-Langwasser collection camp, where the Franconian Jews had been taken. She survived three years of forced labor there and was taken to the Stutthof concentration camp on August 23, 1944, and from there to the subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp in Hamburg-Langenhorn on September 16, 1944. In April 1945 she was sent to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where she was liberated by the British Army in May 1945. She continued to work as a translator for the British for some time and then emigrated to the USA. Doris Margot Israel, later Dorit Rails, died in New York on November 15, 2006 at the age of 97.

According to her own account, her half-sister Carola Israel had left the Hanseatic city in 1931 and had operated a food restaurant in Cologne's Tiepholzgasse since 1933. After its forced closure in 1938, she returned temporarily to Hamburg, but then found a position in a Jewish restaurant in Leipzig. After the destruction of the business during the November pogrom in 1938, she finally returned to Hamburg and worked, among other things, as a domestic servant.
As already mentioned, Carola Israel's name had been removed from the deportation list on October 25, 1941 to Lodz because of her suicide attempt. Six weeks later, however, she had to obey the "evacuation order" for December 6, 1941. Carola Israel was deported to Riga from the "Judenhaus" at Kielortallee 22/24 with the profession "Packerin". She survived the first winter in the subcamp Riga-Jungfernhof and escaped the shootings of "Aktion Dünamünde" in the surrounding forests in March 1942. On October 1, 1944, she was taken from the Riga ghetto to the Stutthof concentration camp near Danzig (now Gdańsk), where she was forced to perform hard labor for the war industry in a sub-labor camp of the Schichau shipyard in Holm (now Ostrów).
In early 1945, as the Red Army advanced, she was taken after a 14-day evacuation march to the Gotendorf (now Chòczewò) camp near Lauenburg in Pomerania, where she fell ill with typhus. Carola Israel was liberated by the Red Army in this camp on March 13, 1945. She and her sister Doris Margot were among the few Jews who survived the deportation to occupied Riga. Carola Israel died in Hamburg on April 24, 1988.

Translation Beate Meyer

Stand: February 2023
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: 1; 5; 6; 8; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 2796 u 508/1892; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 329 u 4760/1892; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 49010 u 227/1901; 332-5 Standesämter 485 u 227/1901; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 49010 u 350/1907; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 6866 u 486/1906; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 8650 u 164/1907; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 7991 u 807/1907; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 9700 u 166/1910; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 7123 u 886/1931; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 45014 u 1267/1899; StaH 351-11 AfW 38966 (Israel, Alma); StaH 351-11 AfW 36764 (Israel, Herbert Joseph); StaH 351-11 AfW 40465 (Simon, Herbert); StaH 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn Abl. 2/20838 (Israel, Herbert); StaH 352-11 Gesundheitsamt 1906; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinde Nr. 992 e 2 Band 3; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinde Nr. 992 e 2 Band 5; StaH 314-15_FVg 5903; https://www.ushmm.org/online/hsv/person_view.php?PersonId=3772624 (Israel, Margot, Zugriff 21.2.2019); www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de: Johann-Hinrich Möller über Fanny Berlin, Olga und Dan Wolf (Zugriff 7.3.2019); En Breefut dat Johr 1946 unter www.threms.de/Quickborn/Heft_1_2008.pdf (Zugriff 7.3.2019); http://www.statistik-des-holocaust.de (Zugriff 7.3.2019); Yad Vashem- Internationale Holocaust Gedenkstätte (Alma Israel); Josepha Evangeline Sylvaine Barbarics, Die Würzburger Juden im Sozialen Sektor mit Blick auf die Geschichte der Sozialen Arbeit von der Weimarer Republik bis zur Nachkriegszeit. Erinnerungsarbeit dargestellt am Kunstprojekt "Stolpersteine". Zur Erlangung des Grades Bachelor of Arts im Studiengang Soziale Arbeit an der Fakultät angewandte Sozialwissenschaften der Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften Würzburg-Schweinfurt, 21.05.2013; Dieter Guderian, Die Hamburger Originale Tetje und Fietje – Lebensgeschichte der Gebrüder Wolf und ihrer Familie Isaac, Cardamina Verlag, Ochtendung 2006. Die Chronik des Gettos Lodz/Litzmannstadt, 1941, Göttingen 2007 S. 257 u. 358-359.
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