Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Lola Hartkäse (née Moses) * 1896

Wandsbeker Marktstraße Ecke Hammer Straße (Wandsbek, Wandsbek)

HIER WOHNTE
LOLA HARTKÄSE
GEB. MOSES
JG. 1896
DEPORTIERT 1943
THERESIENSTADT
1944 AUSCHWITZ
ERMORDET

Lola Hartkäse, née Levin-Moses, born 10 May 1896 in Flensburg, deported on 9 June 1943 to Theresienstadt, further deported on 15 May 1944 to Auschwitz

Lola Hartkäse was summoned to the office of Gestapo Detective Superintendent Ferdinand Amberger on 29 Mar. 1943, and she made a written record of the content of the conversation for her legal representative. "I am supposed to file for divorce, because now I could still go somewhere where it would be bearable, he said, but later on, there’s no knowing where I would be sent. When I said that the war might be over by October, so that I could go abroad, wherever I wanted, he said, in October of what year was I talking about, the war was far from over, it would last a long time yet. I didn’t let this influence me and stuck to my guns – after all, I couldn’t dig my own grave, I couldn’t be the one to ask for a divorce. Then he said a few more times that he could not exert any pressure on me, etc. Then I was released.” Two months later, on 25 May 1943, the marriage of Lola and Bruno Hartkäse was dissolved in a closed session of Civil Chamber 11b of the Hamburg Regional Court (Landgericht). Before the decision became final on 10 June 1943, Lola Hartkäse had already been deported to Theresienstadt.

Lola Hartkäse was the second-youngest of the ten children of the restaurateur Levin-Moses and his wife, Anna, née Lehmann. "Levin-Moses,” the only name given for the father in the register of births, led to confusion, which was ended by decision of the Royal District Court (Königliches Amtsgericht) in Flensburg on 21 Nov. 1912: Moses, it was decided, was the last name, Levin the first name, of the father. In addition, the father used Leopold as a given name. At the time of Lola’s birth, he was a restaurant proprietor and operated the Tivoli in Flensburg.

Levin-Moses came from Friedrichstadt on the Eider River, where he was born on 24 Feb. 1855. Anna Lehmann was born on 4 Apr. 1856 in what was then Inowrazlaw near Bromberg, later known as Hohensalza. They married on 8 July 1882 in Fleckeby and spent their entire married life in Flensburg. Levin-Moses made a living as a businessman, and as such worked also as a restaurateur and a broker. The children were Hermann (2 Feb. 1884), Erna (13 June 1885), Lilli (11 Feb. 1888), Vally (6 Mar. 1889), Marga (8 July 1890), Leonhard (24 Jan. 1892), Hertha (9 Aug. 1893), Edgar (20 Jan. 1895), Lola (10 May 1896), and Luise (24 Jan. 1898). Some family members, including Lola, retained Levin-Moses as their surname.

After the death of Leopold Levin-Moses on 20 Feb. 1909, four days before his fifty-fourth birthday, his widow moved to Hamburg with Lilli, Lola, and Luise. On 1 Apr. 1909, she moved into a large apartment at Fruchtallee 32 in Eimsbüttel and supported herself by renting out rooms. Lilli, as a "children’s nurse,” lived with her employers, in each case for a limited period of time. Lola worked as an office clerk in the Israelite Girls’ Orphanage (Israelitisches Mädchen-Waisenhaus), under the supervision of the Queen Pauline Foundation (Paulinenstift), and lived there as well. Luise, the youngest, attended the Queen Pauline Foundation School. Between May 1912 and June 1916, Lola lived sometimes with her sisters Lilli and Erna, sometimes with her mother, sometimes in the home for girls located at Grindelberg 42, and then she went to Cuxhaven for the next two years. After her return, she stayed first with her mother, who in the meantime had moved into the Rée Foundation on Schedestraße in Eppendorf, and then with her sisters once again. The bond linking the siblings loosened when they married and moved away. Marga married a Christian, Rudolf Katzung, in Sep. 1915; Vally moved to the Netherlands in 1917 and married in The Hague; the oldest brother, Hermann, took up residence in Breslau.

On 5 Dec. 1918, Lola Levin-Moses moved into the home of her sister Lilli, who, since her marriage to Julius Mayer in 1911, lived at Auenstraße 5a in Eilbek. Lola had already lived there once before, in 1912, but now the situation was different: Lilli was a widow. Julius Mayer had died in Nov. 1918, and she had sole responsibility for her son, who was not yet old enough to attend school.

It is not known what work activities Lola pursued. On 27 Mar. 1920, she married the bread dealer and later master baker Bruno Hartkäse, born on 4 Nov. 1891 in Großleinungen in the mountain district of Mansfeld. His parents, Friedrich Hartkäse and Lina, née Volkmann, were not Jews and had a farm in Großleinungen. Bruno Hartkäse had joined the Imperial Navy at the age of 20, and in Dec. 1918 he was mustered out as a boatswain’s mate. On 2 Jan. 1920, he had registered a business as a "dealer in baked goods, confectioneries, groceries, toys, wood, beer, and mineral water” with the business address Hasselbrookstraße 76 and the home address Auenstraße 5 a. Later, the establishment was moved to Marktstraße 4 in Wandsbek. When that took place cannot be verified. In the year of Lola’s marriage, the youngest sister, Luise, died.

In 1922–1923, Bruno Hartkäse’s younger brother, Bernhard, also lived at Hasselbrookstraße 76 for 18 months, until he moved to Altona. Another brother, Otto, who lived in Duisburg, resided temporarily in Hamburg, during his military service.

In 1929, Anna Moses died at the age of 73 in the Eppendorf General Hospital. Lola’s youngest brother, Edgar Levin, also lived in Hamburg (see Stumbling Stone pamphlet for Hamburg-St. Georg) and, despite his "mixed marriage,” remained a member of the Jewish community. He was unable to gain a foothold in a career, and his marriage failed. In 1938 he was arrested for "racial defilement,” and in 1939 he was sent via Glasmoor Prison near Norderstedt to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he died before the end of the year, on 24 Nov. 1939.

Not until 1938 can another trace of Lola Hartkäse be found. She sought to immigrate to The Hague in Holland, where her sister lived. On 12 Dec. 1938, the senior tax director issued to her a clearance certificate for emigration. The reasons for her remaining in Germany are not known.

Presumably at the end of 1938, Bruno Hartkäse took over the H. Hintze Bakery at Hamburger Straße 20 (today: Wandsbeker Marktstraße) in Wandsbek, and Lola did the clerical work. In addition, they opened a branch on Bürgerweide in Hamburg’s Borgfelde neighborhood. In total, 12 "staff members” (Gefolgschaftsmitglieder) worked in their enterprise. Their residence and workplace on Hamburger Straße were not separate, and at least the chief salesgirl lived in their home.
In the census of May 1939, Lola and Bruno Hartkäse were recorded "on the basis of descent” with the designation JJJJ, that is, as "full Jews,” but simultaneously were also classified as non-Jews. In the so-called residents’ list of Jewish persons who lived in Hamburg, Bruno Hartkäse also appears as a Jew. No explanation of this set of facts could be found. While Lola’s sister Lilli was forced to join the Jewish religious association in 1939, there is no corresponding entry for Lola.

Although 48 years old, Bruno Hartkäse was called up for service as an auxiliary policeman in Sep. 1939 and deployed in Upper Silesia and Poland. In Georg Haase, who shared the sentiments of the founder of the NSDAP in Hamburg, Karl Teichelmann, Bruno Hartkäse found someone to intercede for his release or at least for his transfer to Hamburg. Haase, in his petition to the chief of police, cited ethical, health-related, and economic reasons and concluded: "On impartial examination of these facts, there must be a particular reason for this inconsiderate way of dealing with Bruno Hartkäse: He is married to a non-Aryan woman.” He pointed out "that at the time of his marriage in 1920, the prevailing laws and opinions differed from those in effect today.” In addition, he noted that that was also the case when the Nuremberg Race Laws were enacted in 1935. Bruno Hartkäse returned to his business and stayed with his wife, whom he repeatedly assured that he would not seek a divorce.

It was not political or economic reasons but rather personal ones that caused Bruno Hartkäse nonetheless to pursue a divorce in 1940. He was having an affair with the chief salesgirl in his enterprise. Lola could not tolerate her continued presence in their home, but her demand that the salesgirl move out was not accepted. Bruno Hartkäse’s lawyer, Dr. Cronewitz, requested "that the marriage of the parties be dissolved and that the female respondent be declared the party solely at fault.” The reasons he cited were easily rebutted by Lola Hartkäse’s legal representative, the consultant Dr. Alexander Bachur. At the end of Jan. 1941, a conciliation hearing ended in the dismissal of the lawsuit. The fact that Lola Hartkäse was a Jew, the court reasoned, was not sufficient grounds for divorce.

Bruno and Lola Hartkäse agreed to separate and to let the matter rest until after the end of the war, at least until the expiration of the three-year separation period in Oct. 1943, which under the law at that time was a prerequisite for divorce. Thus the demand of the German Labor Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront, DAF) that Lola Hartkäse must stay away from the business premises was met. Bruno Hartkäse paid maintenance; the furnishings of the apartment were divided up; and Lola Hartkäse first moved to another place in Wandsbek and then rented an apartment in Schnelsen. The two remained in weekly contact.

In early Dec. 1941, Lola’s sister Lilli was deported to Riga, a far-reaching event for her sister Marga Katzung and for her brother-in-law Bruno Hartkäse. In this situation, he promised his wife Lola, as he had done many times before, that he would not get a divorce, in order to avoid abandoning her to the same fate. One year later, in Dec. 1942, he claimed that he had been asked "by all the authorities” to get a divorce. Lola pointed out to him that both the DAF and the Chamber of Crafts were interested in the business, not in the marriage, and that, after all, he knew "what a divorce means for me in present times.” After that, Bruno Hartkäse asked his wife merely to represent to the outside world that he had married again.

Then the aforementioned discussion took place in the office of Gestapo Detective Superintendent Amberger in Mar. 1943, during which Lola Hartkäse was informed that her husband had to get married because "the woman concerned is in the family way.” The talk ended with her request that the divorce be postponed until October.

In mid-April, Bruno Hartkäse’s lawyer, Dr. Cronewitz, asked the regional court on behalf of his client to dissolve the marriage and, as before, to grant a divorce, with Lola Hartkäse to be declared solely at fault. Because Lola Hartkäse’s legal representative, Dr. Alexander Bachur, had been deported to Lodz in Oct. 1941, Dr. Ernst Kaufmann now took on her case. He first had to familiarize himself with the case, so that the hearing scheduled for early May was postponed to 25 May 1943.

The court found that there were grounds for dissolving the marriage, because Bruno Hartkäse, at the time of his marriage in 1920, had been mistaken about an important characteristic of the respondent – meaning the "effects that the Jewishness of his wife has had, especially in the last few years.” The court thus took a view that was diametrically opposed to the one represented by Georg Haase 3 ½ years previously. Bruno Hartkäse, the court found, was now willing and able to contract a "worthwhile marriage, from the ethnic-political perspective.” The decision was to become final on 10 June. Lola Hartkäse resigned herself to the decision of the court. Her legal representative refrained from lodging an appeal.

Two days after the decision was rendered, Ernst Kaufmann wrote to Lola Hartkäse "with friendly greetings”: "I can inform you that the transport has been postponed from 2 June to 9 June. There is thus no need for you to be overly hasty in making your travel preparations.” He knew what he was talking about, because he had been called up for the same transport, and he had nothing more to lose, so that he was able to send "friendly greetings.”

Lola Hartkäse lived in the Theresienstadt ghetto for almost one year before she was deported to Auschwitz, and Ernst Kaufmann followed in Oct. 1944. The traces of both disappear there.

Translator: Kathleen Luft

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2016
© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: StaH, 314-15 OFP, FVg 3800; 332-5 Standesämter, 6578-164/1920; 9839-112/1929; 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden, 992 e 2, Band 5; 621-1/82, 12, 32; Stadtarchiv Flensburg, Geburtsregister; Melderegister; Mündliche Mitteilungen von Christiane Katzung; Philipsen, Bernd, Der Weg nach Auschwitz begann auch in Flensburg, in: Goldberg, Bettina, Juden in Flensburg, Flensburg 2006.