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Barthold Goldschmidts zweite Frau Laura mit den Kindern Salomon Robert und Bruno
© Ian Goldsmith

Barthold Goldschmidt, 1926
© Ian Goldsmith

Barthold Goldschmidt * 1893

Grindelallee 153 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

HIER WOHNTE
BARTHOLD
GOLDSCHMIDT
JG. 1893
VERHAFTET 1937
GEFÄNGNIS FUHLSBÜTTEL
1939 SACHSENHAUSEN
ERMORDET 29.3.1940

further stumbling stones in Grindelallee 153:
Gittel Adolf, Alfred Hammer, Reisel Hammer, Joseph (Josef) Hammer, Martha Münden, Dr. Max Münden

Barthold Goldschmidt, born on 20.4.1893 in Hamburg, perished on 29.3.1940 in the concentration camp Sachsenhausen

Grindelallee 153

Barthold Goldschmidt's father Aron, who was born in Emden on Dec 22, 1840, worked as a "commission agent", i.e. he probably conducted commission business as an independent merchant in his own name or for the account of others. He died in Hamburg on January 28, 1903.

Barthold's mother Annie, born in London on April 25, 1850, probably bore the maiden name Neustadt. It remains to be assumed, however, that in the United Kingdom "Neu-" was changed to "New-" on her birth certificate, and from then on the Prussian authorities also used the English spelling, "née Newstadt", in documents. Annie died in Hamburg on July 8, 1929.

From March 17, 1892 to May 1908, the family was registered at Kraienkamp 18, house 2. These were so-called free apartments, in which the foundation of the same name, established in 1868 by Berend Oppenheimer, provided accommodation for needy Jewish families. This suggests that the Goldschmidts may have had a low income. Berend Oppenheimer's only criterion for admission to his foundation was proof of a correctly conducted religious lifestyle. (Because of extensive redevelopment plans for Hamburg's New Town, the properties of the Stift had to be abandoned later. As an alternative, a new five-story building was erected in 1907/08 at Kielortallee 22, which had 23 two- and three-room apartments and also housed a synagogue extending from the first floor to the second floor. The property, which later became the property of the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland (Reich Association of Jews in Germany) and, like many other Jewish residential institutions, functioned as a "Judenhaus" (Jewish house) from 1941, survived the bombing raids almost unscathed. In the first years after the end of the war, it served as a place of worship for Jews returning to Hamburg and for the newly founded Jewish community in Hamburg until 1960. Today it is a privately run residential building).

Barthold Goldschmidt, who was born in Hamburg on April 20, 1893, attended high school up to the quinta and learned the profession of salesman in a manufactory goods store. Due to an eye disease, he served in the war from 1914-1918 garrison service.

Subsequently, he worked as an "agent", representative or "commission traveler" for men's ready-made clothing for various employers. Initially employed by the Dr. Brauer & Co. clothing factory in Elberfeld, he was hired by the Johannes Kollmorgen men's clothing factory in Stettin in April 1931. In February 1932, he became a glove representative for Berger in Limbach. The difficult economic conditions of the recession years meant that his income was rather modest, barely ensuring his daily subsistence, so that from 1931 he was repeatedly dependent on state aid in order to be able to feed his family. As a Jew with no prospect of a permanent job, he was continuously unemployed since 1933 and received welfare benefits from the welfare authorities or unemployment benefits until 1937.

Barthold married three times:
His first marriage to his Protestant wife, the office clerk Amanda Anna Martha Müller, born on November 12, 1891, produced son Alfred, born on Dec 25, 1917 in Hamburg. The marriage, which took place on August 31, 1917, at the Altona registry office, did not last long. After the couple divorced on August 16, 1921, his former wife resumed her maiden name of Müller a good two years later (June 4, 1923).

On July 9, 1924, Barthold Goldschmidt married Laura (née Freid), a Jew born on May 28, 1892, in Smarczow, Poland, who died January 2, 1933, in AK St. Georg. This second marriage produced sons, Salomon Robert, born May 19, 1925, and Bruno, born Nov 24. 1926, who were born in Hamburg. Both attended the kindergarten of the Agudas Yisroel youth group at Bornstraße 2.

Until September 30, 1931, the family lived at Fröbelstraße 10. When Laura Goldschmidt became seriously ill in 1931, the family's financial situation became dramatic. Barthold, who could no longer count on Laura's professional assistance as a "commercial agent's wife," was unable to pay his wife's medical bills or prescription fees for the expensive medications she needed. He soon found himself in arrears with the monthly rent payments as well. Increasingly in financial distress, he could no longer even meet the demands for the care allowance of the Jewish community for the care of his children (30 Pf. per day and child), who were meanwhile accommodated five days a week during the day in the day nursery at Johnsallee 54. In ever new letters of request, he turned to the responsible departments of the welfare authorities, desperately asking for loans, deferments or other assistance.

Although the high rental costs were reduced by moving into a smaller apartment at Rappstraße 10 as of October 1, 1931, the children were no longer provided with day care from November 1932, since contrary to earlier agreements to accommodate them free of charge, the Jewish community now demanded additional payments. At the same time, Laura Goldschmidt had to be admitted to AK St. Georg on November 7, 1932, due to her deteriorating health, where she succumbed to her illness on January 2, 1933.

The new situation forced Barthold Goldschmidt to give up the apartment in Rappstraße and to have almost his entire household auctioned off in order to be able to pay the rent arrears from the proceeds of RM 541.55. Those events caused the family to break apart. In the report of a welfare worker of January 25, 1933, it is stated that Barthold Goldschmidt was "unstable, volatile, irascible, unrestrained and weak-willed. Probably completely overwhelmed by the situation and in obedience to necessity”, he moved into a one-and-a-half room apartment for subletting with the Jewish "ladies' tailor" Esther Zirkmann, born on Dec 10, 1900 in Naumiestis, Russia, at Heidestraße 18.

Shortly thereafter he decided to marry a third time. But this marriage, which took place in 1933, was also ill-fated and did not bring him any happiness. His marriage to his landlady Zirkmann lasted only a short time and was divorced again in 1934. Esther Zirkmann, who only received orders for minor tailoring work, even called Barthold a marriage swindler. She also accused him of having had a "concubinage" with the "Aryan" Lenz during their marriage since October 1933, whereupon Barthold Goldschmidt was found guilty of "adultery" in the divorce decree of March 26, 1934.

After the separation, the children were placed with relatives as a makeshift solution. While Robert stayed with his mother's older sister, aunt Marie Lohde, née Freid (born on October 24, 1888 in Smarczow, Poland), who lived at Bornstraße 3, and her Jewish husband Willy, a self-employed sales representative born on February 25, 1884 in Danzig, as well as their daughter Zita Edith (born on August 3, 1914), Bruno was able to take up quarters with his aunt Martha. Martha Levy (see below), Barthold Goldschmidt's fourth oldest sister, an accountant by profession. She lived with her war-disabled husband Rudolph Levy (born August 21, 1884, died October 28, 1941 in Hamburg), also an accountant, on the first floor of Kielortallee 22. Both families themselves lived in precarious economic circumstances, accompanied by spatial confinement. They were not in a position to take in the distraught children for a longer period of time. Thus, the Youth Welfare Office advised admission to the Hamburg Orphan Institute of the Jewish Community at Papendamm 3 on September 28, 1933.

After a short stay from September 18, 1933, at Grindelallee 91, Barthold Goldschmidt moved in February 1934 to Grindelallee 153, where he rented a room on the third floor of the 7½-room apartment of Martha Lenz, a florist born in Hamburg on July 10, 1895. Although he was very keen to have his children with him, Robert and Bruno were literally left out. Apparently, Mrs. Lenz speculated on higher maintenance payments from the welfare authorities if she placed the two of them there. Since these were not granted, however, she rented out the rooms intended for the children elsewhere.

At the same time, Barthold Goldschmidt repeatedly asked in his desperate letters to the welfare authorities, signed "with German greetings," to continue to grant him the necessary support payments for the sake of the children, whom he would like to see with him and not in an orphanage, since he was "in the greatest need every day" and was permanently in arrears with his rent payments, which led to his landlady herself being a "crisis recipient.

In poor health and undergoing medical treatment, he was unable to comply with the official request of February 13, 1935, to work three days a week at the Stellingen sports field. At the same time, the Youth Welfare Office of the Jewish Community advised against releasing the children into the father's care in a letter to the Welfare Office dated September 17, 1935. It considered him "in no way suitable to raise his children." On September 13, 1935, Raphael Plaut of the Hamburg Orphan Institute certified Salomon Robert as a pupil with "good conduct" but moderate aptitude. Bruno, on the other hand, was considered "difficult to educate, diligence, achievements and order are insufficient." Due to the previously "unfavorable domestic conditions, the children were severely neglected," so that it required "the strictest supervision to gradually get them used to order and punctuality.” Placement with the father "did not in fact guarantee sufficient physical and educational care," according to a report by a welfare official.

Barthold was also unable to accept another call to work at Köhlbrand in Waltershof from March 1937 due to an injury. Although this was never proven, Martha Lenz and Barthold Goldschmidt were accused of having a marriage-like relationship, which was considered "racial defilement" according to the "Nuremberg Laws" that came into force in 1935 and ultimately became his undoing.

While Martha Lenz was forced by the responsible authorities to stay away from him, Barthold Goldschmidt was sentenced by the Hamburg Regional Court on September 10, 1937, to two years in prison with credit for pre-trial detention. By engaging in continued sexual intercourse with a "German-blooded" woman, he had made himself liable to prosecution for the "crime" according to §§ 2, 5 para. 2 of the "Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor". In the reasons for the verdict, it was stated that this was a particularly serious offense and, in order to deter the defendant and the general public, should be punished with appropriate severity, i.e. a prison sentence.

Barthold Goldschmidt served the 21 months and 12 days of imprisonment from September 18, 1937-July 1, 1939 in the Fuhlsbüttel police prison. Immediately after his release, he was taken into "protective custody" on July 3, 1939, and transferred to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg on August 31, 1939, where he died of "physical weakness" on March 29, 1940.

The punishment resulting from the sentence was later erased from the criminal record in accordance with § 3 Hamburg Justice Decree No. 1 of October 2, 1945.

The files of the Hamburg Youth Welfare Office dated December 23, 1938, show that Robert and Bruno "were released from public orphan care on December 8, 1938, and left for England," i.e., were taken to safety by the Jewish Community with a Kindertransport.

Robert Goldschmidt became a British citizen and lived as a railroad employee in Dar es Salaam in Tanganyika in the 1950s. There are currently eleven descendants living in the United Kingdom from the Solomon Roberts line. There is contact with his grandson Ian Goldsmith of Cuxham, England. His brother Bruno Goldschmidt was now named Brian Goldsmith and lived in St. Kilda, Victoria, Australia.

Barthold Goldschmidt's son from his first marriage, Alfred Goldschmidt was adopted in 1924 by Barthold's sister Martha and her husband Rudolf Levy and took the name Levy. He later completed an apprenticeship as a painter. Arrested by the Gestapo on November 10, 1938, he became a victim of the November pogroms and remained imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp until January 17, 1939. After his release, he emigrated to the Netherlands. There, in May, he first arrived in Franeker in the province of Friesland, where he joined a kibbutzim, a branch of the Hachsjara. This Zionist-influenced institution offered preparation for settlement in Palestine. Here he began training to become an agricultural farmer.
In October 1939 until April 1940, he was admitted to the Apeldoornsche Bos psychiatric institution. The clinic, founded in 1909, treated primarily Jewish youths with behavioral problems and disabilities until its closure in 1943. We know nothing about the causes of Alfred's illness. He then spent two years in Amsterdam until he had to be admitted to the Apeldoornsche Bos again in April 1942.
When the Wehrmacht closed the institution at Zutphensche Straat 106, he was deported from Apeldoorn via Westerbork to the Auschwitz extermination camp on January 22, 1943, along with nearly 1100 other patients, on a "special transport for the sick" and was murdered there immediately after his arrival on January 25, 1943.

Barthold Goldschmidt's third wife Esther Zirkmann also did not survive the Holocaust. Deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto on July 15, 1942, she was transported to Auschwitz on January 23, 1943, and murdered there on September 23, 1943.

The fate of Barthold Goldschmidt's siblings:

Paul Aron Philip Goldschmidt, born Dec 19, 1874, was deported to Theresienstadt on Feb. 24, 1943, and died there on Dec 21, 1943 (www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de, Biography Paul Goldschmidt).

Sofie/Sofia/Sophia Goldschmidt, born Feb 23, 1877 in Hamburg, died Dec 28, 1931 in Hamburg, had married Max Bukofzer, born Dec 14, 1871 in Culm, West Prussia (died Nov 7, 1940 in the Jewish Hospital in Hamburg). Their marriage, contracted on Dec 22, 1898, to the "advertising distributor" Bukofzer, who had been a soldier "in the field" from 1914-1918, produced two children, Arthur, born on May 22, 1899, and Bertha, born on Febr 20, 1903. Both were born in Hamburg and survived the war and the persecution.

Ella Goldschmidt, married Lange, born on Febr 24, 1878 in Hamburg, was deported to Riga-Jungfernhof on December 6, 1941 and died there. She was declared dead by order of the Hamburg District Court on November 19, 1953, at midnight on May 8, 1945.
(www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de Biography Ella Lange).

Alfred Goldschmidt, born on July 19, 1880 in Hamburg, by profession an accountant, married to the non-Jewish Martha Clara Wilhelmine Härtel, born on Aug 23, 1885 in Mallwitz, lived at Stellingerweg 2. Alfred was killed in action during position battles at the Yser in Flanders on May 19,1916 as a private in the Landwehr in the 11th company of the Reserve Replacement Infantry Regiment No. 4, "Verlustnr. 554".

Elisa Goldschmidt, married Groth, born on Febr 22, 1882 in Hamburg, was deported to the extermination camp Auschwitz on July 11 , 1942. She was declared dead by order of the Hamburg District Court on September 14, 1953, at midnight on May 8, 1945.
(www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de Biography Elisa Groth).

Martha Goldschmidt, married Levy, born on Sept 15, 1883 in Hamburg, was deported together with her sister Ella on Dec 6, 1941 to Riga-Jungfernhof and died there. She was declared dead by order of the Hamburg District Court on September 14, 1953, at midnight on May 8, 1945.

Stolpersteine will also be set for the other family members deported from Hamburg. The family members who died of natural causes have found their final resting place in the Jewish cemetery Hamburg-Ohlsdorf at Ilandkoppel.

Translation by Beate Meyer
Stand: January 2022
© Michael Steffen

Quellen: 5; StaH 213-11 Landgericht Strafsachen _7076/37; StaH 213-13 Landgericht Wiedergutmachung _2829; _6594; StaH 231-3 A 12 Bd. 51, Nr. 38833; StaH 231-7, Handels- u. Genossenschaftsregister _A1 Bd. 57, A13587; StaH 332-5 Melderegister 1928/1000/1878; _332-5 2058/4391/1883; _332-5 2313/1555/1893; _332-5 2808/978/1893; _332-5 2910/1398/1898; _332-5 6469/201/1909; _332-5 8037/562/1916; _332-5 6034/464/1917; _332-5 6080/548/1924; _332-5 981/562/1931; _332-5 1004/1933; _332-5 8169/543/1940; StaH 332-3 Zivilstandsaufsicht _A125 Nr. 990; StaH 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung _5811; _7430; _15317; StaH 741-4 A254; Standesamt Oranienburg Nr. 1684/40; Bundesarchiv Gedenkbuch; E-Mail
Josè Martin, Kampwesterbork, Niederlande am 16.2.2016; www.gerechte-der-HYPERLINK "http://www.gerechte-der-pflege.net/wiki/index.php/Apeldoornsche_Bos"pflege.net/wiki/index.php/Apeldoornsche_Bos (zugegriffen am 20.2.2016); www.joodsmonument.nl/page/408346?lang=en zugegriffen am 18.2.2016; www.dasjuedischehamburg.de (zugriffen am 27.3.2016); www.vaandaagindegeschiedenis.nl/22januari/ (zugegriffen am 19.03.2017); www.wikipedia.org/wiki/206"Division_(DeutschesKaiserreich) (zugegriffen am 23.1.2016); www.denkmalprojekt.org/verlustlisten/rjf_wk1.html (zugegriffen am 23.1.2016); Gedenkbuch der gefallenen deutschen jüdischen Soldaten des Reichsbunds jüdischer Frontsoldaten; diverse Adressbücher Hamburg; Gedenkbuch des Bundes; Gottwaldt/Schulle, "Judendeportationen", S. 111, 113, 125f., 221; Stein, "Jüdische Baudenkmäler", S. 114f.
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