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Li(e)selotte Falck (née Rosenberg) * 1911

Lilienstraße 15 (Hamburg-Mitte, Hamburg-Altstadt)

HIER WOHNTE
LIESELOTTE FALCK
GEB. ROSENBERG
JG. 1911
DEPORTIERT 1941
ERMORDET IN
LODZ

further stumbling stones in Lilienstraße 15:
Harry Rosenberg, Bettina Rosenberg

Bettina Rosenberg, née Westheimer, born 25 Sept. 1877 in Hamburg, deported 6 Dec. 1941 to Riga-Jungfernhof
Harry Rosenberg, born 17 Oct. 1875 in Hamburg, deported 6 Dec. 1941 to Riga-Jungfernhof
Lieselotte Falck, née Rosenberg, born 16 Dec. 1911 in Hamburg, deported 25 Oct. 1941 to Lodz where she died 30 May 1943

Lilienstraße 15

The couple Harry Rosenberg and Bettina, née Westheimer, were married on 7 Aug. 1903. They both came from Jewish families and lived with their three daughters in a middle-class home in Hamburg. Their eldest, Ilse, was born on 1 July 1904, Edith on 22 Mar. 1907 and Lieselotte on 16 Dec. 1911.

Bettina Rosenberg’s father, the merchant Abraham Isaak Westheimer (born 19 May 1843), came from Moisling, a suburb of Lübeck. He had married the butcher’s daughter Amalie Meyer (born 17 July 1849) in Altona on 27 Oct. 1876. The family lived at Wrangelstraße 12.

Harry Rosenberg worked as an authorized representative of his father Gustav Rosenberg’s stationary and office supplies store at Brandstwiete 7. Gustav Rosenberg had founded the business in 1878 at Großen Reichenstraße 54. Harry Rosenberg became co-owner in 1908 and continued to run the business by himself following his father’s death on 23 Dec. 1911.

Harry Rosenberg had two younger siblings, Hermann Emil (born on 24 July 1880) and Dora (born on 29 Mar. 1879). Hermann managed a factory and married Erna Knobloch (born on 21 May 1893 in Santa Cruz) on 29 May 1917. Dora earned a living as a piano teacher and lived with her widowed mother Jenny Rosenberg, née Elias, at Heinrich-Barth-Straße 9.

Ilse, Harry and Bettina Rosenberg’s eldest daughter, married the travelling salesman Alfons Hirschel (born 28 Nov. 1894) in 1924. Their grand-daughter Marion was born in Kiel on 24 Mar. 1928.

The company "Gustav Rosenberg” flourished over the decades. Large banking houses like the Vereinsbank, the Norddeutsche Bank, the Bankhaus Warburg & Co. as well as law firms, consultants and large import-export companies were among their customer base.

Yet at the start of the 1930s, the business also felt the effects of overall bad economic situation, and that was compounded by health issues which led the 56-year-old Harry Rosenberg to place his company in the hands of his daughter Edith.

Edith Rosenberg had gone to school at Dr. Jacob Löwenberg’s private lyceum at Johnsallee 33 and afterwards she attended Dr. Oberländer’s business school on Grindelallee. She received a business education and from then on worked at her father’s store. Edith became the sole owner on 9 Oct. 1931. Her father did not, however, withdraw from business life entirely. He continued to work as his daughter’s employee.

In 1934 they left their private apartment at Hoheluftchaussee 119, where they had lived for nearly twenty years, along with their business space at Brandstwiete 7 and moved to Lilienstraße 15 where they had both business and living quarters.

Yet the turnover there continued to shrink due to the boycott of Jewish businesses and ever new regulations that Jewish businesspeople were forced to abide by. Edith later told that their previous customers like the large banks no longer purchased from Jewish distributors. Jewish customers emigrated or were forced, like the lawyers, to close their offices and practices. When Edith had to undergo inpatient hospital treatment in Nov. 1938, Gestapo officials showed up on Lilienstraße and gave her father Harry Rosenberg five minutes to close the store. Her bank account was frozen, their warehouse with their store supplies confiscated, and the company was struck from the business registry.

Over the subsequent period, Edith Rosenberg kept her head above water by taking on writing work, mostly Jewish families needing her help to draw up lists of their belongings in preparation for emigration. In May 1939 she had made preparations for her own emigration and obtained permission to immigrate to England as a domestic worker. Her parents Bettina and Harry Rosenberg stayed behind with their youngest daughter Lieselotte at the May Foundation located at Bogenstraße 25 where they had found accommodation after being forced to give up their business. Lieselotte’s boyfriend and later husband Salomon Falck (born 21 Sept. 1897) also lived with them. Salomon, who went by the name Siegbert, was separated and was not able to marry Lieselotte until 6 June 1940 (see Rosalie Falck). The two of them hoped to immigrate to the USA after their wedding, but the affidavit, the required sponsorship from a friend, failed to come through for reasons unknown.

The Falcks’ last residence was at the "Jewish house” at Dillstraße 20. From there they were deported to the Lodz Ghetto "Litzmannstadt” on 25 Oct. 1941. The couple was given lodging in the ghetto at Altmarkt 4.

When the couple received a "departure order” in May 1942 for deportation to an unknown destination, Siegbert/Salomon turned to the "Resettlement Commission” in the hopes of having the order retracted. In his letter he pointed out his military awards and decorations and his work since Nov. 1942 as "a member of security staff in the 5th precinct”. His application was approved.

Lieselotte Falck died of pulmonary tuberculosis in the "ghetto hospital” on 30 May 1943.

When the ghetto dissolved ahead of the advance of the Red Army, Siegbert/Salomon was moved in Aug. 1944 to a forced labor camp run by the SS for the arms manufacturer HASAG, Hugo Schneider AG in Czestochova south of Warsaw. The prisoners worked under grueling conditions in an ammunition factory and steel plant. On 24 Dec. 1944 Siegbert/Salomon was delivered to Buchenwald concentration camp on a mass transport where he was registered as a "Jewish prisoner” with the prison number 11874 and the work specification "nurse”. Siegbert/Salomon was first housed in the "small camp”, a quarantine zone, before being taken to barrack 47 in the main camp where the living conditions were slightly better. As of Mar. 1945 he had to perform forced labor in a construction squad, the last one being maintenance work in nearby SS housing in Kleinobrigen, despite the fact that he had had difficulty walking on his left side since 1942. Siegbert/Salomon Falck died shortly before the camp was dissolved on 29 Mar. 1945, in the infirmary of the "small camp”. An infectious stomach-bowel catarrh was given as the cause of death.

A Stumbling Stone was laid for Siegbert/Salomon Falck outside his former residence at Försterweg 43 in Hamburg-Stellingen (see Stolpersteine in Hamburg).

Harry and Bettina Rosenberg were deported from Bogenstraße 25 to Riga-Jungfernhof along with their daughter Ilse, their son-in-law Alfons Hirschel and grand-daughter Marion on 6 Dec. 1941. Ilse and Marion Hirschel were among those who were taken to Riga Ghetto in 1942 where they performed forced labor in a work squad. They were brought to Stutthof concentration camp on 1 Oct. 1944. It is not known where or under what circumstances they perished. Stumbling Stones commemorate the Hirschel Family at Kottwitzstraße 19 (see Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Eimsbüttel).

Harry Rosenberg’s unmarried sister Dora Rosenberg was also deported to Riga-Jungfernhof on 6 Dec. 1941. Her teacher’s license had been revoked after 40 years of service. She was forced to give up her apartment at Löwenstraße 52 where she had lived with her mother until her mother’s death. She sold off parts of her furnishings under value and was unable to take her concert piano with her to the smaller apartment at Löwenstraße 50. Her last accommodation was in the "Jewish house” at Bogenstraße 25. In a final letter, only parts of which were permitted by German censors to pass on to the "enemy foreign country”, she informed her brother Hermann Rosenberg of her impending "departure”. A Stumbling Stone has been laid for Dora Rosenberg at Löwenstraße 50.

Her niece Edith Rosenberg survived the end of the war abroad, however she was severely injured during the bombing of London on 18 June 1944.

Translator: Suzanne von Engelhardt
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: April 2020
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: 1; 6; StaH 351-11 AfW 32425 (Rosenberg, Edith); StaH 351-11 AfW 4006 (Rosenberg, Hermann); StaH 351-11 AfW 19952 (Falck, Salomon); StaH 621-1/84_2 (Firmenarchiv Ernst Kaufmann); StaH 332-5 Standesämter 8624 u 402/1903; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 1418 u 1714/1904; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 8716 u 121/1917; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 1911 u 4483/1877; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 5864 u 877/1876; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 9782 u 1467/1920; Lodz Hospital, Der Hamburger Gesellschaft für Genealogie zur Verfügung gestellt von Peter W. Landé, 2009, USHMM, Washington, bearbeitet von Margot Löhr; Auskunft aus der Gedenkstätte Buchenwald von Torsten Jugi, E-Mail vom 22.3.2016; Das Buch der alten Firmen der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg, S. 58 XI; Lohmeyer: Stolpersteine, S. 300; Bajohr: "Arisierung" S. 369; Sparr/Eggert: Stolpersteine, S. 184.
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