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Nathan Peltesohn
© Privatbesitz

Dr. Nathan Nathanael Peltesohn * 1862

Isestraße 41 (Eimsbüttel, Harvestehude)

1942 Theresienstadt
ermordet 7.8.1942

further stumbling stones in Isestraße 41:
Martha Golembiewski

Dr. Nathan Nathanael Peltesohn, born 12/22/1862 in Posen (now Poznan, Poland), deported to Theresienstadt on 7/15/1942, perished there on 8/7/1942.

Nathan Peltesohn, born in Posen (Poland) was a longtime resident of Isestrasse in Eppendorf. His wife Flora, née Silberstein died in 1910 at the age of 47, when their son Gerhard was 17. Nathan Peltesohn remained, cared for by his faithful non-Jewish housekeeper Dora Uhrbrook, who lived in the household.
Nathan Peltesohn was an ophthalmologist and had a well-frequented practice in Colonnaden in the center of town. His son Gerhard complied with his father’s will and also became a successful eye surgeon. Gerhard Peltesohn married Edith Arendt, daughter of the owners of the Modehaus Arendt, an elegant fashion store in Neuer Wall. They had two sons, Fritz, who later called himself Edvard, and Frank. After Jewish doctors were deprived of their licensing from the Association of the Statutory Health Service, Nathanael Peltesohn was able to continue to make his living by treating private patients. In spite of his old age, he worked until 1939, when the approbations of all Jewish doctors were revoked.
His grandson Frank describes Nathan Peltesohn as a dapper, always well-dressed man who emanated truthfulness and respectability. He played the piano and the cello, and often invited friends to join him for chamber concerts at his home in Isestrasse. "Grandpa Nathan” led a health-minded life with physical exercise, did calisthenics to radio music every morning and walked on all his routes, including the daily way to his practice and back, right up until old age.

The grandchildren enjoyed visiting their "Opa” at home in Isestrasse and have a vivid recollection of playing "ship” with him on the sofa in the living room that had a window overlooking the adjoining Ise Canal. Every time, the kids were "rewarded” with a glass of apple juice before leaving.

In November 1938 Gerhard Peltesohn, his wife and their two sons emigrated to the USA, where he had to study dentistry all over again. A colleague of his grandfather’s who had already gone to America before 1933 had provided the affidavit the family needed for entering the United States. "So, in a way, Grandfather saved our lives”, his grandson said 70 years later.
Nathan Peltesohn, by now 76 years old, stayed back alone. According to the records, he was still able to make do, but that certainly did not replace the comfort of his family.
At the beginning of 1942, he had to move out of the apartment where he had lived for more than thirty years to spend his final months in a "Jews’ house” in Beneckestrasse. In July 1942, he had been forced to sign a "rest home entry contract” for Theresienstadt, for which more 20,000 RM were taken from his blocked account – "Money that went to the Gestapo”, the Jewish Community declared during the compensation proceedings in 1948.

Nathan Peltesohn was ordered to report at the Schanzenstrasse School for the transport to Theresienstadt on July 15th, 1942. Maybe his faithful housekeeper Fräulein Uhrbrook helped him to pack his few belongings. But most likely, she was not allowed to accompany him on his last route in his home town of Hamburg, because the old folks who were taken to Theresienstadt were already loaded onto trucks at the school’s front door. Dora Uhrbrook remained in regular letter contact with Gerhard Pelteso(h)n’s family in the USA until her death in 1954, giving an account of his father’s fate.
A week after Nathan Peltesohn, his son’s mother-in-law Rosalie Arendt, (see Eppendorf, Geffckenstrasse 23) was deported to Theresienstadt. She was liberated in February 1945, but died in Switzerland before the end of the war.

According to the testimony of the Jewish doctors in Theresienstadt, Nathan Peltesohn died of "old age/heart failure” only three weeks after his arrival in the ghetto.
On September 14th, 1942, one month after Nathan’s death, his two sisters Anna and Jenny from Berlin arrived in Theresienstadt. Jenny, a year older than her brother, died four months after arriving. Anna Peltesohn, a well-known Berlin educationist, had run a private girls’ school since 1897, whose renown had continuously grown up to the 1930s. In October 1938, the rental contract for the school premises in Pariser Strasse in the heart of Berlin was terminated, and the school had to be closed. Anna Peltesohn died in Theresienstadt on January 13th, 1943, her 75th birthday.

Translated by Peter Hubschmid
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: February 2018
© Christa Fladhammer

Quellen: 1; 6; AfW 221262; Privater Briefwechsel mit der Schwiegertochter Edith Pelteson, 1955 bis 1961; Edward F. Pelteson per E-mail 17.4.2005. Frank M.Pelteson per E-mail 20.10.2007; Karl Heinz Metzger, Die Villlenkolonie Grunewald-berlin.de, www.berlin.de/ba-charlottenburg-wilmersdorf/bezirk/lexikon/textgrunewald.html, eingesehen am 5.4.2009; Helga Gläser, Karl Heinz Metzger u. a.: 100 Jahre Villenkolonie Grunewald 1889–1989, Berlin 1988 "Hier ist kein Bleiben länger", Jüdische Schlgründerinnen in Wilmersdorf. Katalog zur Ausstellung 19.3. bis 18.9.1992 im Wilmersdorf Museum, Berlin 1992.
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