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Jettchen Heilbut * 1885

Grindelallee 184 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

1941 Riga

further stumbling stones in Grindelallee 184:
Ernst Ephraim Streim, Erna Streim, Mirjam Streim, Walter Streim

Jette "Jettchen" Heilbut, b. 9.7.1885 in Hamburg, deported to Riga on 12.6.1941, killed there on 3.26.1942

Grindelallee 184

Jette "Jettchen" Heilbut‘s father, Adolf Heilbut, was a businessman and auctioneer. Her mother, Rivka, née Cohen, brought a second child into the world on 4 October 1886, Moritz. After the death of his father in 1919, he took over the business at Lohmühlenstrasse 91, which was also the private address of his small family. Moritz and his wife Betty, née Abt, emigrated with their son Abraham to Palestine in August 1938. On 1 July 1938, he had been deprived of his business; he could no longer make a living in Hamburg.

Jettchen remained single and worked as a teacher at the girls school of the German Israelite Congregation at Karolinenstrasse 35. Now and then, she was late for class as her students reported, and she then used the same excuse formula as her charges: the cattle in Kampstrasse, where a large slaughter house was located, had blocked her way; there was simply no getting around them.

With the inauguration of deportations in 1941, the Jewish school system in Hamburg was hard hit. In May 1942, the authorities cleared out the school on Karolinenstrasse. On 30 June, they shut all the Jewish schools throughout Germany. One can assume that Jette was employed at the school from 1905 to 1942, even though the personnel files for this period have unfortunately disappeared.

The Communal Religion Tax records for the Jewish Congregation show that Jettchen Heilbut moved several times: from Goethestrasse 10 (today, Grillparzerstrasse), to the nearby Körnerstrasse 4, from there to Brahmsallee 157, where she stayed with the married Behrend couple, and finally to Grindelallee 184, her last address. She lived there as a sub-lessee with the family of her teaching colleague Ernst Ephraim Streim (see Grindelallee 184). When in 1941, the deportations began--accelerated by Allied bombings--the now 56-year old Jettchen Heilbut and the Streim family were summoned. She was on the second large wave of deportations, comprised of 22 transports to Riga from all over Germany. On 6 December 1941, she had to board the train leaving Hamburg, just as did the Chief Rabbi of the Jewish Congregation, Joseph Carlebach (see his biography Grindelhof 30 and www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de), his wife, and four children. Housing at Riga-Jungfernhof for the women consisted of cattle stalls and barns; the temperature was well below the freezing-point. Prisoners froze to death there every day. Along with the cold and the bad hygienic conditions, they were exposed to hunger, hard labor, and beatings.

In order to distract the people from their living conditions and their suffering, Joseph Carlebach initiated a program to preserve Jewish cultural life, so far as this was possible under the conditions. This included instruction for the children, who were divided into groups. Prisoners who were pedagogically trained or seemed otherwise suited, took over various subjects. Jettchen Heilbut, for example, gave lessons in natural history, a field in which she had evidently specialized.

On 26 March 1942, SS-personnel shot between 1700 and 1800 inmates of Jungfernhof in the "Dünamünde Action,” among them were Jettchen Heilbut as well as Joseph Carlebach and his family.

Translator: Richard Levy
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

© Stephanie Fleischer

Quellen: 1; 5; Hochmuth/de Lorent (Hrsg.): Hamburg, S. 314; Lehberger/Pritzlaff/Randt: Entrechtet; Meyer (Hrsg.): Verfolgung; Michael: Das Leben; Müller: Jüdische Schüler, S. 282–290; StaH 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung 16491 Wiedergutmachungsakte Moritz Heilbut; StaH 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung 48019 Wiedergutmachungsakte Abraham Heilbut.
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