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Stolperstein für Gertrud Baruch
© Johann-Hinrich Möller

Gertrud Baruch * 1892

Bogenstraße 23 (Eimsbüttel, Eimsbüttel)

HIER WOHNTE
GERTRUD BARUCH
JG. 1892
DEPORTIERT 1942
AUSCHWITZ
ERMORDET

further stumbling stones in Bogenstraße 23:
Elisabeth Bruhn, Adolf Schröder

Gertrud Baruch, born 23.10.1892 in Hamburg, deported to Auschwitz on 11.7.1942

Bogenstraße 23 (Eimsbüttel)

Gertrud Baruch's parents, the Elmshorn-born business traveler Meyer Baruch (1840-1922) and Julie Baruch, née Abel (1854-1937), who came from Teplitz/Bohemia, had married before 1875. They lived in Elmshorn, where their first eight children were born: Selly (1875-1967), Therese (1877-1962), Paula/ Pauline (born 1878), Bertha (1879-1881), Adolf (born 1881) Louis (born 1882), Daniel (1883-1980) and Rike (born 1886). The family moved to Hamburg in 1888. Five more children were born in the Hanseatic city: Mary (born 1888), Fanny (born 1891), Gertrud (1892-1942), Esther (born 1894) and Philipp (born 1896).

The father acquired Hamburg citizenship in 1901. The family lived in the Karolinenviertel at Marktstraße 15 a (St. Pauli) from 1890 to 1898 and then moved to Bogenstraße 23 in Eimsbüttel. From spring 1899, Gertrud went to the Israelite Girls' School at Karolinenstraße 35 (St. Pauli), which she completed in spring 1908 after ten years of school. Immediately after leaving school, she attended the state teacher training seminar at Fuhlentwiete 34 (Neustadt) under director Prof. Dr. H. Cordsen. In October 1909, she transferred to Anna Ramme's (1864-1913) private teacher training seminar for girls' secondary schools at Barcastraße 8 (Hohenfelde). This was followed in the spring of 1912 by her final academic examination at the "Unterrichtsanstalten des Klosters St. Johannis”, where she also completed her practical year from 1912 to 1913. During this time she must have become friends with Susanne Goldschmidt (born 29.10.1892 in Hamburg), later married to Pander. Gertrud passed her seminary/teacher's examination on March 1, 1913; Susanne had passed the examination a few days earlier.

Despite this qualification, Gertrud first had to apply for a temporary substitute position, which she received on April 1, 1913 to replace the teacher M. Klemperer, who was ill. Her friend Susanne also received a one-year contract as a substitute teacher. After a year as an assistant teacher at the elementary school for boys at Lohkoppelstraße 36 (Barmbek-Süd), Gertrud was again without a job. She decided against further applications to public schools. Instead, she taught at Dr. Jacob Loewenberg's private lyceum at Johnsallee 33 (Rotherbaum), possibly as a subject teacher with a limited number of hours.

The First World War left large gaps in the teaching staff at public schools; Gertrud Baruch was given a permanent position in the state school service on October 1, 1917. After her temporary teaching position, Susanne Goldschmidt worked at a private school from 1914 to 1920 before moving to Hamburg as an assistant teacher. Gertrud Baruch was listed as a state teacher in the Hamburg teacher register from the 1918/19 school year onwards. She taught at the girls' elementary school at Schleidenstraße 9 (Barmbek-Süd) until the 1932/33 school year, for which she was overqualified due to her training.

The anti-Semitic regulations and laws of the Nazi state led to her dismissal at the end of the school year in 1933. On November 1, 1933, at the age of 41, she was forced to receive a pension; in 1941 this amounted to 143 RM net per month.

Her brother Louis Baruch (born 30.6.1882 in Elmshorn) traveled to London in July 1933; he had his company in Hamburg run by a long-time employee and the authorized signatory. After an apprenticeship in the overseas business, he had worked for several years in South Africa and Liverpool, completed his one-year military service in Hamburg in between and set up his own business as a commission agent in the wool trade in Hamburg in 1909. During the First World War, he was drafted as a soldier and had to close his business. In 1920, he married Emmy "Lissy” Zadich (1895-1931) from Hamburg, with whom he had a daughter. By his own admission, Louis Baruch had not intended to emigrate to England. However, the anti-Jewish measures of the German Reich left him little choice. His private and company assets in Germany, amounting to around 130,000 RM, were converted into "blocked assets” and withdrawn from free access. The company was deleted from the commercial register in June 1937, after "commercial measures” had already been taken against it in 1936.

There is little information about what activities Gertrud Baruch carried out after her forced retirement. On her Jewish religious tax (Kultussteuer) file, which was kept from 1919, it was mentioned that she had worked in an advice center from January 1, 1937; another time it was mentioned that she had given language and trade courses for Jewish emigrants at Beneckestraße 6 (Rotherbaum). She was recorded on the deportation list with the occupation "employee”.

Susanne Pander, née Goldschmidt, had registered her self-employment as a gymnastics and dance teacher after her dismissal from the teaching profession on July 31, 1933. She emigrated to England in February 1939 and then to the USA in November 1940.

Some of Gertrud Baruch's siblings also emigrated to North America:
Her brother Adolf Baruch (born 2.4.1881 in Elmshorn) had completed an apprenticeship as a grain merchant, he moved to Göttingen, lived in Hanover from 1906 and in Düsseldorf from 1913. He managed to emigrate to the USA before the census of May 1939.

Her sister Selly Marcus, née Baruch (born 30.11.1875 in Elmshorn) emigrated to the USA in August 1939 together with her husband Moritz Marcus (1872-1945) and their dog.

His brother Philipp Baruch (born 14.2.1896 in Hamburg) had completed a commercial apprenticeship and moved to Berlin in 1917, where he married in 1919. He left Germany and - like all Jewish emigrants - was expatriated by the Nazi regime.

His sister Fanny Rocamora, née Baruch (born 13.5.1891 in Hamburg) worked as a seamstress in Hamburg and emigrated to New York in the USA in 1916. There she married the merchant Leon Rocamora (born 21.5.1884 in Hamburg) in the same year.

Gertrud Baruch obviously hesitated (too) long to follow her siblings. Her residential address for around 30 years was Bogenstraße 23 II. Stock (i.a. 1900-1930). After receiving notification of her forced retirement, she moved in July 1933 to sublet with fund broker Edmund Armknecht at Reh(h)agen 18 Hochparterre in Hummelsbüttel. The following moves indicate both her strained financial situation and the limited choice of accommodation on the part of the state (and the emigration of many Jews from Hamburg): Brahmsallee 6 III. with Oswald and Susanne Pander (May 1936 - Dec. 1936) (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de), a 2-room apartment at Innocentiastraße 51 IV. Stock/ Harvestehude (January 1937 - January 1941) and Hartungstraße 12 I. Stock with Martha Samson (February 1941 - February 1942).

It was first documented in Gertrud Baruch's personal file in May 1941 that she was also planning to emigrate to the USA. The sources for this are extremely sparse; there is only a note from the municipal administration of the Hanseatic City of Hamburg dated February 6, 1942: "The application of the above-mentioned has been settled by the Eleventh Ordinance to the Reich Citizenship Act of November 25, 1941.” In the meantime, the USA had become Germany's enemy in the war and emigration to the USA was not more possible. And Germany had banned the emigration of Jews with the start of the deportations. The deported Jews had their citizenship revoked and their assets were confiscated by the aforementioned decree. This was also the case for Gertrud Baruch:

In March 1942, she was committed to Bundesstraße 43 right wing I/Eimsbüttel. The accommodation had been declared a "Jews' house” by the Nazi state, where Jews had to stay in a confined space for the planned deportations.

49-year-old Gertrud Baruch was deported to the Auschwitz extermination camp on July 11, 1942. Like everyone else on the transport, she was probably murdered immediately.


Her home furnishings were auctioned off on October 10, 1942 by the Wehling auction house (owner Wilhelm Wehling, born 1885, not a member of the NSDAP) at Neuer Wall 103. The auction proceeds of 706 Reichsmarks went to the German Reich.

The auction houses were among those that profited from the deportation of the Jews: Compared to the income from 1933 to 1938, Wehling's annual income had increased almost fivefold between 1940 and 1942. Eighteen years later, the New York lawyer Max Hirschberg (also Susanne Pander's lawyer) noticed in the course of the compensation payments that the valuable items owned by Gertrud Baruch were missing from the sales list: Piano, fur coat, jewelry, electrical appliances, gas stove, electric sewing machine, books, carpets and music excerpts. His conclusion was: "It is reasonable to assume that some of the confiscated furnishings were distributed among the Nazi leaders.”

Translation: Beate Meyer
Stand: December 2024
© Björn Eggert/ Jonas Stier

Quellen: Staatsarchiv Hamburg (StaH) 213-13 (Landgericht Hamburg, Wiedergutmachung), 20358 (Gertrud Baruch); StaH 221-11 (Entnazifizierung), C (J) 1439 (Wilhelm Wehling, Auktionator, keine Kategorisierung); StaH 314-15 (Oberfinanzpräsident), FVg 7585 (Ausreiseakte von Moritz u. Selly Marcus); StaH 314-15 (Oberfinanzpräsident), R 1937/0995 (Firma Louis Baruch); StaH 314-15 (Oberfinanzpräsident), F 89 (Louis Baruch); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 9083 u. 2550/1892 (Geburtsregister 1892, Gertrud Baruch); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 5948 u. 505/1899 (Heiratsregister 1899, Moritz Marcus u. Selly Baruch); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 8624 u. 352/1903 (Heiratsregister 1903, Salo Rocamora u. Pauline Baruch); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 9725 u. 3044/1913 (Sterberegister 1913, Cordula Elisabeth Anna Ramme); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 8741 u. 271/1920 (Heiratsregister 1920, Louis Baruch u. Emmy Zadich); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 8068 u. 379/1922 (Sterberegister 1922, Meyer Baruch); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 980 u. 129/1931 (Sterberegister 1931, Emmy Baruch); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 9887 u. 105/1937 (Sterberegister 1937, Julie Baruch geb. Abel); StaH 332-7 (Staatsangehörigkeitsaufsicht), A III 21 Bd. 9 (Aufnahme-Register 1897-1905 A-F), Meyer Baruch (12.1.1901 Bürgerrecht Nr. 63351); StaH 332-8 (Meldewesen), Alte Einwohnermeldekartei 1892-1925, Rollfilm K 4200 (Adolf Baruch, Esther Else Baruch, Fanny Baruch, Meyer Baruch, Pauline Baruch, Philipp Baruch, Rieke Baruch, Sally Baruch); StaH 351-11 (Amt für Wiedergutmachung), 14677 (Gertrud Baruch); StaH 351-11 (Amt für Wiedergutmachung), 14797 (Susanne Pander); StaH 361-3 (Schulwesen – Personalwesen), A 850 (Gertrud Baruch); StaH 522-1 (Jüdische Gemeinden), 992b (Kultussteuerkartei der Deutsch-Israelitischen Gemeinde Hamburg), Gertrud Baruch, Louis Baruch; Landesarchiv Berlin, Heiratsregister 1911 (Wolfgang Karl Richart Ortmann u. Rike Baruch); Jüdischer Friedhof Hamburg-Ohlsdorf (Meyer Baruch, Grablage ZX 12 96; Julie Baruch geb. Abel, Grablage ZX 12 97); Ursel Hochmuth/ Hans-Peter de Lorent, Hamburg: Schule unterm Hakenkreuz, Hamburg 1985, S. 312 (Gertrud Baruch); Hamburger Lehrerverzeichnis, Schuljahr 1918/19, 1922/23, 1924/25, 1927/28, 1929/30, 1930/31, 1932/33 (Gertrud Baruch); Hamburger Börsenfirmen, 11. Auflage, Hamburg 1910, S. 33 (Louis Baruch, gegr. 1909, Rohe Wolle, Paulstr. 30, Börsenplatz zwischen Pfeiler 48 und 49); Hamburger Börsenfirmen, 27. Auflage, Hamburg 1926, S. 54 (Louis Baruch, gegr. 1909, Rohe Wolle, Prokurist D. Baruch, Schauenburgerstr. 7); Hamburger Börsenfirmen, 36. Auflage, Hamburg 1935, S. 43 (Louis Baruch, gegr. 1909, Rohe Wolle u. Tierhaare, Prokurist Anna Erna Gertrud Wally Täubert, Paulstr. 11); Hamburger Adressbuch (M. / Meyer Baruch, Reisender, Marktstr. 15a) 1891- 1892, 1895, 1897-1899; Hamburger Adressbuch (Meyer Baruch, Reisender, Bogenstr. 23) 1900, 1905, 1910, 1915, 1920; Hamburger Adressbuch (Schleidenstr. 9, Mädchen-Volksschule) 1925; Düsseldorfer Adressbuch (Adolf Baruch, Getreide- u. Futtermittelagenturen, Bismarckstr. 88) 1913; Düsseldorfer Adressbuch (Adolf Baruch, Getreideagenturen, Sternstr. 68) 1915, 1920, 1922; www.ancestry.de (Louis Baruch auf Passagierlisten: 1902 Hamburg-Amsterdam, 1924 Hamburg-Grimsby, 1929 Hamburg-Liverpool); www.ancestry.de (Louis Baruch, Entzug der Staatsbürgerschaft 2.5.1941); www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de (Martha Samson, Oswald Pander).