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Henriette Heymann * 1878

Husumer Straße 13 (Hamburg-Nord, Hoheluft-Ost)

HIER WOHNTE
HENRIETTE HEYMANN
GEB. KAHL
JG. 1878
EINGEWIESEN 1940
HEILANSTALT LANGENHORN
"VERLEGT" 23.9.1940
BRANDENBURG
ERMORDET 23.9.1940
LANDES-PFLEGEANSTALT
"AKTION T4"

Henriette Heymann, née Kahl, born on 5 Oct. 1878 in Aumund, murdered on 23 Sept. 1940 in the Brandenburg/Havel euthanasia killing center

Stolperstein in Hamburg-Hoheluft-Ost, at Husumer Strasse 13

Henriette Heymann was born on 5 Oct. 1878 in Aumund (today a part of Bremen) as the daughter of the waiter Carl Heinrich Theodor Kahl and his wife Friederike, née Rosenberg. On 25 Aug. 1906, Henriette married Jacob Heymann, born in Altona on 30 Mar. 1875. Both were of the Jewish faith. Jacob Heymann worked as an editor. The couple lived at Ottenser Marktplatz 13 in Altona, where their daughter Hanna Ilse was born on 29 June 1912. In 1919, the family moved to Husumer Strasse 13 in Hamburg’s Hoheluft-Ost quarter. Henceforth, the entries in the Hamburg directory designated Jacob Heymann as an editor. There is no record of the newspaper or magazine for which he worked.

In Hamburg, the family had only a few years to live together. Jacob Heymann died on 28 Nov. 1921 at the age of only 46.

The death of her husband obviously put a heavy strain on Henriette Heymann. She was admitted to the Friedrichsberg State Hospital (Staatskrankenanstalt Friedrichsberg) at the end of 1921 and then was accommodated in the Hamburg-Langenhorn State Hospital (Staatskrankenanstalt Hamburg-Langenhorn) from May 1922 to Mar. 1923. Apparently, she had recovered to such an extent by then that she managed to lead an independent life until the middle of 1940 and probably also to take care of her daughter. From 1928 to 1938, she worked as a business executive of the insurance department within the H. Heymann Company, located at Alter Wall 69, a commercial agency. Ludwig Heymann, the co-owner, was Henriette’s brother-in-law, the brother of her late husband Jacob Heymann.

On 30 Nov. 1937, Henriette Heymann declared she was leaving the Jewish Community. She probably hoped it would help her elude reprisals in the future. However, when the Reich Association of Jews in Germany (Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland) was created, her membership was forcibly restored.

Henriette Heymann strove to emigrate and had already packed her belongings seaworthy for this purpose in 1939. The departure dragged on. This burdened Henriette Heymann so much that on 6 July 1940, she again became a patient in the hospital in Langenhorn, which had since been renamed "sanatorium and nursing home” (Heil- und Pflegeanstalt).

In the spring/summer of 1940, the "euthanasia” headquarters in Berlin, located at Tiergartenstrasse 4, planned a special operation aimed against Jews in public and private sanatoriums and nursing homes. It had the Jewish persons living in the institutions registered and moved together in what were officially so-called collection institutions. The Hamburg-Langenhorn "sanatorium and nursing home” ("Heil- und Pflegeanstalt” Hamburg-Langenhorn) was designated the North German collection institution. All institutions in Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, and Mecklenburg were ordered to move the Jews living in their facilities there by 18 Sept. 1940.

On 23 Sept. 1940, Henriette Heymann was transported to Brandenburg/Havel with a further 135 patients from North German institutions. The transport reached the city in the Mark (March) on the same day. In the part of the former penitentiary that had been converted into a gas-killing facility, the persons were immediately driven into the gas chamber and murdered with carbon monoxide. Only Ilse Herta Zachmann escaped this fate at first (see corresponding entry).

The restitution file of Henriette Heymann’s daughter Hanna Ilse, married name Gabry, contains a death certificate. According to it, Henriette Heymann died on 4 Feb. 1941 at 9:10 a.m. in Chelm, post office Lublin, of circulatory weakness and stroke.

As the other people murdered in Brandenburg, Henriette Heymann was never in Chelm (Polish) or Cholm (German), a town east of Lublin. The former Polish sanatorium there no longer existed after SS units had murdered almost all patients on 12 Jan. 1940. Also, there was no German records office in Chelm. Its fabrication and the use of postdated dates of death served to disguise the killing operation and at the same time enabled the authorities to claim higher care expenses for periods extended accordingly.

Hanna Ilse Gabry, Henriette Heymann’s daughter, had emigrated to Paris and survived the Holocaust. In her restitution proceedings, the Hamburg Chief Finance Administration (Oberfinanzdirektion Hamburg) claimed that Henriette Heymann’s moving goods confiscated by the German Reich in 1940, which had been packed in a Lift Van, a sea chest, and stored in the duty-free port, had been consumed by fire during an air raid on the night of 24 to 25 October.

Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

© Ingo Wille

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 9; AB; StaH 133-1 III Staatsarchiv III, 3171-2/4 U.A. 4, Liste psychisch kranker jüdischer Patientinnen und Patienten der psychiatrischen Anstalt Langenhorn, die aufgrund nationalsozialistischer "Euthanasie"-Maßnahmen ermordet wurden, zusammengestellt von Peter von Rönn, Hamburg (Projektgruppe zur Erforschung des Schicksals psychisch Kranker in Langenhorn); 332-5 Standesämter 6185 Geburtsregister Nr. 976/1875 Jacob Heymann, 6196 Geburtsregister Nr. 1245/1877 Ludwig Heymann, 5969 Heiratsregister Nr. 891/1906 Henriette und Jakob Heymann, 9793 Sterberegister 2162/1921 Jacob Heymann; 351-11 Nr. 3699 Hanna Ilse Gabry; 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn Abl. 1/1995 Aufnahme-/Abgangsbuch Langenhorn 26.8.1939 bis 27.1.1941; UKE/IGEM, Archiv, Patienten-Karteikarte Henriette Heymann der Staatskrankenanstalt Friedrichsberg; Staatsarchiv Bremen, Standesamt Aumund, Geburtsregister Nr. 58/1878, Henriette Kahl.
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