Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Käte Meyerhof * 1898

Eppendorfer Landstraße 46 (Hamburg-Nord, Eppendorf)

1941 Riga

further stumbling stones in Eppendorfer Landstraße 46:
Alfred Aron, Bertha Engers, Bertha Margaretha Haurwitz, Dr. Rudolf Haurwitz, Henriette Hofmann, Siegfried Marcus, Martha Markus, Elsa Meyerhof, Olga Reyersbach

Elsa Alice Gretchen Meyerhof, née Müller, born on 4 June 1875 in Wandsbek, deported on 6 Dec. 1941 to Riga
Käthe Meyerhof, born on 29 Mar. 1898 in Hamburg, deported on 6 Dec. 1941 to Riga

Eppendorfer Landstrasse 46, second floor

Elsa Meyerhof was born on 4 June 1875 in (what was at the time the Prussian town of) Wandsbek and was married to the merchant Julius Meyerhof. The couple appears to have been affluent – for instance, as late as 1939, Elsa Meyerhof possessed, as the owner of the "sole usufructuary right of the Julius Meyerhof common property,” securities worth 80,000 RM (reichsmark). They had at least three children: Annie Jacoby, née Meyerhof, born on 20 Nov. 1896; Käthe Meyerhof, born on 29 Mar. 1898; Margot (later Matzi) Bock, née Meyerhof, born on 3 Nov. 1902.

In 1896, at the time their daughter Annie was born, the couple lived at Hartungstrasse 3. From 1914 until Sept. 1932, Elsa Meyerhof lived – just like her daughter Käthe – at Rothenbaumchaussee 159. Registered as residing at this address in 1930 was also the husband and father, respectively, Julius Meyerhof, as one can gather from the voters’ list of the Jewish Community from 1930. Then, in Sept. 1932, the mother and daughter moved with their domestic help to Eppendorfer Landstrasse 46.

In the "house registration” card file (Hausmeldekartei), Elsa Meyerhof was listed as a merchant’s widow and head of the household. This means that her husband Julius must have died between 1930 and 1932 – possibly, his death was the reason for the relocation to the perhaps smaller five-and-a-half-bedroom apartment on Eppendorfer Landstrasse. Then, in June 1941, Olga Reyersbach (see corresponding entry) also moved into the apartment.

On 6 Dec. 1941, at the age of 67, Elsa Meyerhof was deported – like her daughter Käthe and the subtenant Olga Reyersbach – to Riga-Jungfernhof, an external camp of the Riga Ghetto, where all traces of them disappear.

Apparently, Käthe Meyerhof, who had never married, always lived with her parents or, respectively, with her widowed mother. By contrast, her sisters Annie Jacoby and Margot Bock had probably left their parents’ home after their weddings.

She worked as a self-employed commercial agent, earning a good living. At any rate, she earned so much (e.g., from 1936 until 1938 between 1,500 and 1,900 RM; after-tax assets amounting to 17,000 RM) that she was made to pay a "levy on Jewish assets” ("Judenvermögensabgabe”) amounting to 3,759 RM, which all Jewish men and women with assets exceeding 5, 000 RM had to pay as a result of the November Pogrom of 9 Nov. 1938.

After the November Pogrom, Jews were banned from practicing their occupations, a measure that hit Käthe Meyerhof as well. After the war, the heirs claimed corresponding restitution. If she was designated as a "worker” in the confirmation of detention issued by the Red Cross for the time of her deportation, one may assume that she was enlisted to perform forced labor in the years from 1939 until her deportation on 6 Dec. 1941.

By 1939 at the latest, she made efforts toward emigration. A tax clearance certificate (Unbedenklichkeitsbescheinigung) of the Hamburg Chief Finance Administrator (Oberfinanzpräsident) was issued on 3 July 1939; on 18 Aug. 1939, her moving goods were estimated. The expert’s report contains a note saying, "The emigrant goes abroad as a typist under completely insecure circumstances.” Probably, the emigration failed at the start of the war. At any rate, an entry on her Jewish religious tax (Kultussteuer) file card indicates "emigration in July 1939 (to) Britain;” the entry was subsequently deleted.

Just how humiliating the situation was for a Jewish woman seeking to emigrate at the time is revealed by way of example by a correspondence of the foreign currency office with the Hamburg Finance Administration in Mar./Apr. 1939: Käthe Meyerhof had obviously been ordered to surrender jewels, silver, and gold. She "obediently” requested in writing that she be allowed to keep a ring she had received as a keepsake from her father on his deathbed, a ring that was estimated by a jeweler on Neuer Wall as being of inferior value. The request was turned down without any reason provided. In addition, Käthe Meyerhof was asked threateningly to hand in gold and silver items immediately.

On 6 Dec. 1941, at the age of 43, she was deported along with her 68-year-old mother to Riga-Jungfernhof. Both have been considered missing since and after the war, they were declared dead as of 31 Dec. 1945.

Her sister Annie Jacoby was deported, together with her daughter Vera Jacoby (born on 30 Nov. 1921), to the Lodz Ghetto on 25 Oct. 1941. Both have been missing there. Only sister Margot Bock survived Nazi rule. Going by the name of Matzi Bock, she lived in Mumbai since 1959; it is not known when she went to India.


Translator: Erwin Fink

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2017
© Birgit Burgänger

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 6; 8; schriftl. Auskunft Comité international de la Crox-Rouge v. 20.7.1956; StaH 351-11 AfW, 290398; StaH 314-15 OFP, Fvg 7825; StaH 314-15 OFP, R 1939/2447; StaH 332-8 Meldewesen 9123 Nr. 2106/1896; StaH 332-8 Meldewesen A 51/1 (Elsa Meyerhof); AB 1933 u. 1941.
Zur Nummerierung häufig genutzter Quellen siehe Link "Recherche und Quellen".