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Rosa Belzinger (née Jacobsohn) * 1865

Bornstraße 18 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

verstorben 29.3.1941

further stumbling stones in Bornstraße 18:
Carl Belzinger, Helene Guttmann, Jacob Guttmann

Carl Belzinger, born on 25 Sept. 1871, suicide on 26 Sept. 1942
Rosa Belzinger, born in 1865, died on 29 Mar. 1941

Carl Belzinger traded as an established merchant in panty hoses and knitted goods; he lived in a childless "mixed marriage” with his Christian wife Louise (Lilly) in Isestraße, Parkallee, then in Bismarckstraße, and eventually at Bornstraße 18. A member of the German-Israelitic Community, he supported their work with donations, for example, in the summer of 1933, when he contributed a sum toward recreational welfare (Erholungsfürsorge) for children. Letters from relatives indicate that the situation of persecution had severe psychosomatic effects on both partners: Carl Belzinger was apparently very nervous and suffered from diabetes, though trying to hide his ailments from his wife and to put on a show of good spirits. He received some special food rations and later insulin because of the diabetes. His wife suffered several heart attacks in 1939/1940 and was repeatedly committed to the Eppendorf hospital.

After she had been in the hospital for months in the winter of 1940, one of her sisters traveled there to care for her until she had recovered reasonably well by the spring of 1941. Carl’s brother Leopold was deported to Theresienstadt on 19 July 1942 (he died there on 10 Mar. 1944). When Carl Belzinger received the order on 23 Sept. 1942 for him and his wife to clear the ground-floor apartment as of 1 Oct., perhaps he feared that this was the fate awaiting him as well; at any rate, he did not see any perspective for himself anymore. Maybe in view of his wife’s poor health, he also did not want to burden her with any further deterioration of their living and life situation. He hanged himself while his wife was doing some errands away from home. As a matter of routine, the policeman called to the scene arranged for the dead body to be transported to the morgue of the Harbor Hospital.

Rosa Belzinger was Carl’s sister. She lived with her husband, the merchant Joseph Jacobsohn, in Hölderlinsallee. When her husband passed away in Aug. 1935, she took on her maiden name again. Letters from relatives and the tax file card of the Jewish Community indicate that Rosa Belzinger was in poor health and was cared for by her daughter Jeanette (Nettie) Jacobsohn. The latter was a trained home economics teacher. She was dismissed from school teaching for "racial reasons” and received a reduced pension of 153 RM (reichsmark), which she used to support Rosa Belzinger with 60 RM and later with 40 RM a month. Rosa Belzinger, about whom her relative wrote, "[s]he has now become very old,” suffered a stroke in mid-March 1941 and was committed to the Israelite Hospital where she died on 29 Mar. 1941. The daughter lived until the end in the former John R. Warburg-Stift, a residential home, at Bundesstraße 43. From there she was deported to Theresienstadt on 15 July 1942, where she died on 2 Sept.

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

© Beate Meyer

Quellen: StaH, 522-1, Jüdische Gemeinden, 992b, Kultussteuerkartei der Deutsch-Israelitischen Gemeinde Hamburg; ebd., 331-5, Polizeibehörde – Unnatürliche Sterbefälle, 1942/1549; Adressbücher 1938, 1942; Hamburger jüdische Opfer des Nationalsozialismus. Gedenkbuch, Hamburg 1995, Schr. C.E. an Peter Hess v. 9.11.2003, Schr. C.E. an die Verf. V. 17.11.2005 sowie Privatarchiv C.E., div. Briefe; Gemeindeblatt der Deutsch-Israelitischen Gemeinde zu Hamburg 5/7.7.1933; Deutsch-Jüdische Gesellschaft, Wegweiser zu den ehemaligen jüdischen Stätten des Leidens in Hamburg, Heft 2, Hamburg 1993.