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Dora Nathan (née Rieger) * 1881

Brahmsallee 39 (Eimsbüttel, Harvestehude)

1942 Theresienstadt
1944 Auschwitz

further stumbling stones in Brahmsallee 39:
Gertrud Johanna Alsberg, Ernst Alsberg, Dr. Nathan Max Nathan, Antonie Simon, Lane Simon

Nathan Max Nathan, born on 15.7.1879 in Emmerich/Rhine, deported on 19.7.1942 to Theresienstadt, from there deported on 23.10.1944 to Auschwitz and murdered.
Dora Nathan, née Rieger, born 11.11.1881 Dresden, deported to Theresienstadt on 19.7.1942, from there deported to Auschwitz on 23.10.1944 and murdered.

Brahmsallee 39 (formerly Werderstraße 16)

Where today the two Stolpersteine for the Nathan couple are located in front of the Grindel high-rise building at Brahmsallee 39, there used to be Werderstraße 16, where the Jewish couple lived for many years together with their two children Max and Margot. But let us look back at the life of the family.

Nathan Max Nathan grew up with several siblings in Emmerich, near the Dutch border. No traces have been found of the parents, Max Nathan (1848-1916 in Emmerich) and Jeanette, née Horn, (1850 in Mülheim-1912 in Wesel).

The professional career of Nathan Max Nathan was very varied. This is evidenced by his studies of philosophy and oriental sciences in Bonn and Berlin. In addition, he graduated from the College for the Science of Judaism and obtained both the rabbinate diploma and the philosophical doctorate (Strasbourg).

Despite his lack of legal training, the Hamburg Jewish Community hired him as a syndic in 1912. He held this office, which also included responsibilities in the community's social institutions, for decades. He retained his preference for literary work, among other things, despite the complex activities. When the Jewish Community increasingly came under the scrutiny of the Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei - Secret State Police) in the years from 1933 onwards, accompanied by discrimination and exclusion, Nathan Max Nathan kept his nerve and continued to enjoy the trust of the community members.

Dora Rieger lived in Dresden with her parents, the grain merchant Max Rieger and Johanna, née Levi, and her siblings. We do not know how Dora Rieger's life unfolded over time until her marriage to Nathan Max Nathan. In May 1914, Dora Rieger and Nathan Max Nathan were married in Hamburg. At this time, Dora was already living with her brother Paul on Werderstraße. Since it was foreseeable that Paul Rieger would not be in Hamburg much longer for professional reasons, the couple took over this apartment. One year later, son Max Martin (1915- 1992) was born. His sister Margot Jeanette Johanna (1982 USA) was born in 1917. The youngest son Paul Wolfgang died in 1920, four weeks after his birth.

The two children followed different educational and professional paths. Max Martin cherished the desire to become an architect. To this end, he graduated from the Talmud Tora Oberrealschule in Hamburg in 1934; there is a photo of him with his school class. This was followed by an apprenticeship as a bricklayer to give his future studies a technical "foundation". But Max Martin never lost sight of his professional goal, despite all the harassment and exclusion against Jews during this time. Like his father, he was also interested in culture, and in August 1937 he joined the Jewish Cultural Association as a member, as evidenced by his surviving identity card. In November 1938 he lost his job, presumably in an architect's office, and at the same time the National Socialist "mob" raged throughout the Reich, in the "Pogrom Night" on stores with Jewish owners. In addition, there were no inhibitions to set synagogues on fire and to pass this off as "popular anger".

Max's sister Margot graduated from the Realschule of the Israelitische Töchterschule Carolinenstraße (Jewish girl’s school). This was followed by vocational training as a domestic nurse, for which she attended a technical school in Frankfurt am Main. Since the school was dissolved by the National Socialist rulers in mid-November 1938, Margot left it without graduating and returned to Hamburg.

The siblings decided to leave the German Reich, as they saw no future for themselves here. Margot Nathan obtained a British visa and committed herself to working as a maid in England for five years. She and her brother arrived there in April 1939. Before that, they gave money to their aunt Hedwig Eichmann-Rintel to support her emigration.

Meanwhile, the customs investigation office suspected Mr. and Mrs. Nathan of "capital flight because they were Jews" and reported this "fact" to the Chief Finance President, whereupon a "provisional security order" was issued. This meant that they had only a limited sum available from their assets each month for living expenses. All other expenses required the written approval of the Chief Finance President. Almost simultaneously with this charge, the couple moved into an apartment at Frauenthal 9. They were already registered there for the census in May 1939. With regard to the couple's finances, the officials of the Chief Finance President noticed some "inconsistencies". They did not consider that Nathan Max Nathan acted as trustee for several members of the community. He himself had no material benefit from this, but it was an aspect of his duties in a functioning community.

By the time the war began on September 1, 1939, the discriminatory measures against Jews had become even more severe (tenant protection was eliminated, Jews had to bear additional forced names, etc.) and there was no end in sight. In the course of the following two years, they handed on radios, bicycles, typewriters and so on. Emigration was banned in October 1941, and shortly thereafter the first deportation train headed east with over a thousand Hamburg Jews.

From then on, many Jews were assigned to "Jewish houses", where they lived in cramped conditions. This was also the case for the Nathan couple, who "lived" in Altona at Breite Str. 46 from April/May 1942.

On July 19, 1942, Nathan Max and Dora Nathan had to present themselves at the Schanzenstraße elementary school in order to be deported from there to the Theresienstadt ghetto. The Jews destined for this deportation destination had been put on hold until July 1942, when two large transports left Hamburg on July 15 and 19.

For two years, Mr. and Mrs. Nathan held out in the Theresienstadt ghetto, only to be deported to the Auschwitz extermination camp on October 23, 1944, where they were murdered.

What traces were found of Margot and her brother Max Nathan:
Margot Nathan, in Great Britain, fell ill over the years. The fate of her parents did not allow her to rest. In 1947 she was able to emigrate to the United States, where she worked as a factory worker for several years. She consulted various doctors, including the family's former family doctor Raphael Möller (1895 Altona - 1980 USA). In 1959 she married Ernst (Ernest) Weis, a native of Frankfurt; no closer traces to him have been found. In the mid-1960s, Margot was treated by the physician Hans Strauss, who had previously worked at the University of Frankfurt am Main. He summarized her personality as follows: "She was happy and carefree. Now she lives with the memory of her parents who perished. She feels guilty for not having tried everything to make it possible for her parents to emigrate."

Max Martin Nathan had emigrated to the USA in February 1940, where he was employed as a technical draftsman in various architectural offices in Boston for more than ten years. At the same time, he began studying architecture in 1949. After successful completion, he found suitable employment in New York and remained there for five years. Then health problems - part of his right lung had already been removed in 1942 - forced him to change his place of residence. He then lived and worked in Tucson, Arizona.

What traces were found to the siblings of Dora, née Rieger, and Nathan Max Nathan:
Rabbi Paul Rieger (1870 in Dresden-1939 in Stuttgart), who had a doctorate, worked in various congregations in the German Reich, for example in the early 1900s as second preacher at the Hamburg Temple Association (liberal Jews). From 1915/1916, Paul Rieger worked as a regional rabbi in Braunschweig. In 1919 he married Emilie Reiss (1892-1985 USA). One year later their son Martin Max was born, who lived as a student in Hamburg in the 1930s and fled to the USA before the census in May 1939. The next professional stop for Paul Rieger was in Stuttgart from 1922, where he worked as a city rabbi and teacher until his retirement in 1936. After the death of her husband in 1939, Emilie Rieger decided to follow her son to the USA. In October 1940, she traveled to Lisbon, Portugal, where she embarked and arrived in New York in December 1940. Emilie Rieger and her son Martin Max died there in 1985 and 2009, respectively.

Elsa Rieger (1876 in Dresden) married Eugen Meier in 1902. Details are not known. Presumably they emigrated.

No traces were found about the sister Irma Rieger, born in Dresden in 1879.

The youngest brother Arno Ahron Rieger (1889 Dresden) died already in February 1890.

Walter Rieger (1883 in Dresden-1942 in Lodz Ghetto) practiced the profession of a waiter and lived in Cologne from an unknown date. From there the National Socialist rulers deported him to the ghetto "Litzmannstadt"/ Lodz on October 30, 1941. Walter Rieger survived only a few months until April 27, 1942.

Emil Menachem Rieger (1885 in Dresden) married Marie Johanna Kirschner (1885) from Dresden. Their daughter Ruth Charlotte was also born there in 1921. Presumably the Rieger family died in the Royal Air Force air raids on February 13, 1945.

Betty Nathan (1876) was married to Dutchman Samuel van Zuiden (1875 in Assen). They lived in Emmerich, where daughter Martha was born in 1917. At an unknown date, the family fled to the Netherlands. A few months after the beginning of the war (September 1, 1939), the German Wehrmacht occupied the Netherlands in May 1940. For the next two to three years, persecution measures determined the lives of the Jews there. On April 3, 1943, the van Zuiden couple was taken to the Westerbork transit camp. The daughter Martha probably managed to emigrate or survive illegally. With the transport on April 6, 1943, the rulers deported Betty and Samuel van Zuiden to the Sobibor death camp in occupied Poland, where they were murdered three days later.

Selma Nathan (1878 - 1942 in Amsterdam) was married to the Dutchman Aron Broekman (1879 Arnhem), they lived in Arnhem, where their two sons Elias Paul (1903) and Max Ernst (1905) were born. Elias Paul married Frederika Mendels (1907), their children Selma Charlotte and Aron Robert were born in 1935 and 1936. The rulers deported Aron and Elias Paul Broekmann on an unknown date to the notorious concentration camp Mauthausen/Austria, where father and son arrived on June 20, 1942. Only a few days later, on June 25 and June 29, 1942, respectively, Aron and Elias Paul Broekman were no longer alive, allegedly having been "shot on the run," the death cards testify. After receiving this news, Selma Broekman took her own life in Amsterdam on September 30, 1942. Presumably her daughter-in-law Frederika and the grandchildren were able to "go into hiding" shortly before their deportation, according to the address card index of October 1945.

Max Ernst Broekman (1905-1943 in Sobibor, Poland) was married to Harriette Dwinger (1915 in Groningen). The young couple lived in Hilversum, where their son Hans Paul (1941-1943 in Sobibor/ Poland) was born. The family was deported by the authorities to the Sobibor extermination camp on June 1, 1943. Only three days later Harriette, Max Ernst and the two-year-old Hans Paul Broekman were no longer alive. In memory of the Broekman family, committed citizens had three Stolpersteine laid at the last freely chosen residential address in Hilversum.

Arthur Nathan (1881 - 1926 in Düsseldorf) married Martha Calmsohn (1888- 1965 in New York/ USA). Their sons Hans John (1915 - 1994) and Paul Martin (1921 - 2001) were born in Düsseldorf. When Martha Nathan and her two sons emigrated to the USA is unknown to us. The sons later lived in Canada, where they found their last resting place in the Jewish Cemetery in Victoria/ British Columbia.

Siegmund Nathan (1883 in Emmerich) and his wife Bertha (1891 in Trier), née Israel, married in 1912. The couple remained childless. In 1938, the couple decided to flee to the Netherlands, which was still safe at the time, where they lived in Kerkrade. With the occupation of the Netherlands in May 1940 by the German Wehrmacht, security ceased to exist. Two and a half years later, on November 16, 1942, the couple had to board the deportation train bound for Auschwitz. Three days later they were no longer alive. In memory of Bertha and Siegmund Nathan, two Stolpersteine were laid in Emmerich, where they made their home.

Hedwig Nathan (1884) married the cattle dealer Albert Eichmann-Rintel (1880 in Salzkotten). The couple emigrated to South America at an unknown date. No further traces were found.

In memory of various members of the Nathan, Broekman and van Zuiden families, survivor and volunteer researcher Alexander Salm and Ada Funk deposited memorial sheets at Yad Vashem.

Translation Beate Meyer

Stand: February 2023
© Sonja Zoder

Quellen: 1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 8; StaH 314-15 (OFP) F1828, R1939/2475, R1942/0009; StaH 332-5/8697-156/1914 Standesamt (Heiraten); StaH 351-11(AfW) 4208, 5677, 40733, 42532; Zeitschrift des Vereins für Hamburgische Geschichte, Bd. 93, Hamburg 2007, S. 94; Studemund. Halevy: Im jüdischen Hamburg, Hamburg 2011, S. 189, 193, 209; Wamser, Weinke: Eine verschwundene Welt, Springe 2006, S. 190; Lorenz, Berkemann: Die Hamburger Juden im NS-Staat 1933 bis 1938/39, Göttingen 2016, Bd 6, S. 652-653; Rosendahl: Stolpersteine in der Hamburger Neustadt und Altstadt, Hamburg 2018, S. 471; Jansen, Brocke: Die Rabbiner im Deutschen Reich 1871-1945, Teil 2, München 2009, S. 447-448, 501-503; Randt: Die Talmud Tora Schule in Hamburg, München 2005, S. 147; URL: https://www.jewiki.net/wiki/Nathan_Max_Nathan, https://www.geni.com/people/Nathan-Nathan/6000000012855571312, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judentum_in_Dresden jeweils am 25.3.2021;
https://archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22Rieger%2C+Paul%2C+1870-1939%22 am 9.9.2021; https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/archive/5104653/?p=1&s=dora%20nathan&doc_id=5104653, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Stolpersteine_in_Emmerich_am_Rhein, http://www.dasjuedischehamburg.de/inhalt/nathan-nathan-max jeweils am 27.9.2021;
https://www.joodsmonument.nl/en/page/189329/bettij-van-zuiden-nathan, https://raumdernamen.mauthausen-memorial.org/index.php?id=4&p=5827 jeweils am 12.10.2021; https://jewishcemeteryofvictoriabc.ca/list-of-graves/n am 21.10.2021; Wir bedanken uns bei Prof. Dr. Ina Lorenz, die einen umfassenden Lebenslauf zu Nathan Max Nathan verfasste, den wir hier in gekürzter Form wiedergeben.
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