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Susanne Herz * 1888

Ferdinandstraße 28/30 (Hamburg-Mitte, Hamburg-Altstadt)

HIER WOHNTE
SUSANNE HERZ
JG. 1888
DEPORTIERT 1941
RIGA
ERMORDET

Susanne Herz, born 13 Aug. 1888 in Geislar, deported 6 Dec. 1941 to Riga-Jungfernhof

Ferdinandstraße 28/30

Susanne Herz did not move to Hamburg until late in life. She had grown up with several sibling in an old, established Jewish family in Geislar. Her parents Hermann Herz and Julia, née Horn, owned their house at Hauptstraße 71. According to the Geislar address book of 1913, her father worked as a butcher. The small town of Geislar on the right bank of the Rhine had 1013 residents before World War I. In 1969 it was incorporated and today it belongs to Bonn.

After her mother’s death – her father had already passed away – Susanne Herz moved to the neighboring community of Beuel (Beuel too is part of Bonn today). Her brother Alexander Herz (born 25 Dec. 1895) lived there with his wife Helene, née Sanders (born 7 June 1890 in Kaldenkirchen, Kempen) and their children Frieda (born 20 Aug. 1922) and Günter (born 3 Oct. 1927). Alexander Herz ran a flourishing butcher shop at Wilhelmstraße 77 (today Siegfried-Leopold-Straße 23). Susanne Herz lived on Neustraße and worked down town at Münsterplatz as a salesperson in Tietz Department Store, until she, like all Jewish employees, was let go in 1933. Her younger brother Jakob Herz (born 11 Oct. 1904, died 26 Jan. 1960) was also let go in the course of the "Aryanization” of the department store. He immigrated to Palestine in 1935.

After losing her job, Susanne Herz moved to Wieseck (today a quarter of Gießen). Her sister Selma Gottlieb, née Herz (born 24 May 1901), later reported that she had found a job there as nurse to an "invalid” by the name of Löwenstein and was trained in that profession. (Moritz Löwenstein, born in Wieseck on 15 Mar. 1879, lived in Wieseck at Gießener Straße 80, today the corner of Philosophenstraße and Gießener Straße. He was bound to a wheelchair and supported financially by two brothers who lived in the USA until he was moved in 1934/1935 to Gumpertz’s Infirmary at Danziger Platz 16 in Frankfurt on the Main. Moritz Löwenstein was deported to Theresienstadt on 18 Aug. 1942 where he died on 24 Mar. 1943.)

In 1933 about 30 Jewish people still lived in Wieseck. Many had already left the town due to the growing antisemitic pressure. Susanne Herz also hoped she would find greater anonymity in the big city when she joined her sister Selma in Hamburg in early June 1937.

Selma had worked in Oberaltenallee Old Age Home since 1930 as a nursing aid and initially she lived at Kleinen Bäckerstraße 31. From 1933 onwards she worked at various companies in Hamburg as an office clerk. In 1935 she moved to the third floor of the building at Ferdinandstraße 28/30. Susanne found an opportunity to earn money, not more precisely described, with the brothers Max, Julius and Bernhard Hellmann at Hellmann’s Restaurant in the Jewish community center at Hartungstraße 38.

After her sister Selma married the waiter Max Gottlieb (born 2 Sept. 1897 in Frankfurt on the Main) on 26 June 1937, Susanne Herz moved into a room in Grindel District which was closer to her workplace. When the restaurant closed, she was unemployed for a time until she found a job as a nurse for the lawyer Wolff at Schlüterstraße 22. Since her sister Selma and her brother-in-law Max Gottlieb intended to leave Germany in the short term, Susanne Herz took over their apartment on Ferdinandstraße. One room, with a separate entrance, was sublet to Thekla Rosner (see her entry). In Jan. 1940 the couple immigrated to the USA via Sweden. When Selma obtained a transit visa from the Cuban government for her sister, authorizing Susanne to spend six months in Cuba before immigrating to the USA, Susanne Herz had already been picked up from her apartment. The life-saving visa came too late. Susanne Herz was deported as a "domestic worker” on 6 Dec. 1941 to a subcamp of Riga, the empty manor house Jungfernhof six kilometers away from the main camp. All trace of her was lost from there.

Alexander Herz, her brother in Beuel, was forced to give up his apartment in Dec. 1938. His family was given accommodation in a "Jewish house” at Wilhelmstraße 26. In Jan. 1942 they were taken to Endenicher collection camp. The Benedictine nuns had had to leave the former cloister Maria Hilf. Alexander, his family and his brother from Bonn Siegmund Herz (born 26 Jan. 1897) and his wife Else, née Arensberg (born 12 Mar. 1901 in Flerzheim) and their son Heinz (born 27 Dec. 1923) were deported along with other Jews from Cologne and the Rhineland on 20 July 1942 from Cologne-Deutz to the Minsk Ghetto where they were killed. Stumbling Stones at Beueler Siegfried-Leopold-Straße 23 and Breitestraße 17 in Bonn bear witness to them.

Another brother had lived in Fürth with his family: Bernhard Herz (born 19 Feb. 1890) had run a clothes shop at Hirschenstraße 3 as a merchant. He died in Fürth on 6 Mar. 1932. His widow Friedel, née Hausmann (born 25 Aug. 1896), called Riedel in her second marriage, died on 9 Apr. 1941. Their daughter Elisabeth Liesel (born on 10 May 1923) was killed in Auschwitz on 18 June 1943.

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

Stand: April 2020
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: 1; 3; 4; StaH: 213-13 Z 24709; StaH 351-11 AfW 10474 (Herz, Susanne); StaH 351-11 AfW 25154 (Gottlieb, Selma); StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinde Nr. 992 e 2 Band 3; https://www.yumpu.com/de/document/view/7195747/wider-das-vergessen-erinnerungsorte-in-beuel-bonn-stellt-sich-quer (Zugriff 18.2.2014); Stolpersteine in Gießen, http://www.stolpersteine-giessen.de/dokumentation/schicksale/loewenstein_moritz_1879.html (Zugriff 18.2.2014); http://familienbuch-euregio.eu/genius/ ?person=166162 (Zugriff 18.2.2014); http://www.nordbayern.de/region/fuerth/judische-kindheit-in-der- ns-zeit-1.5157062?cid=19.413371 (Zugriff 19.2.2017).
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