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Rosa Katzenstein (née Rosenbaum) * 1865

Hallerstraße 5 (vormals Klosterallee 2) (Eimsbüttel, Harvestehude)

HIER WOHNTE
ROSA KATZENSTEIN
GEB. ROSENBAUM
JG. 1865
DEPORTIERT 1942
THERESIENSTADT
ERMORDET 2.8.1942

Rosa (Röschen) Katzenstein, née Rosenbaum, born 27 Aug. 1865 in Hamburg, deported 15 July 1942 to Theresienstadt, date of death 2 Aug. 1942

Hallerstraße 5 (Klosterallee 2)

Rosa Katzenstein was born on 27 Aug. 1865 in Hamburg. Her parents were Simon and Händel Rosenbaum, née Josterias. We do not know anything about her childhood, teenage years or possible training.

In 1886 she married the cloth merchant Herz/Hermann Katzenstein, born on 18 Oct. 1860 in Rhina (Hersfeld-Rotenburg County). His parents’ names were Henle and Breine Katzenstein, née Katz.

Rosa and Hermann Katzenstein had four children: Bertha, born in 1887, Hugo, born in 1889, Paula, born in 1892, and Dalbert, born in 1895.

Rosa Katzenstein’s life and those of her children were closely tied to her husband’s company. Hermann Katzenstein and Samuel Pfifferling founded the company Hermann Katzenstein & Co in 1882. They had business with Portugal and Portuguese colonies in West Africa. In 1911 Hermann Katzenstein assumed sole ownership of the company, which was then operated as a wholesale fabric business with headquarters at Ellernthorsbrücke 9/11. Rosa and Hermann Katzenstein moved to Isestraße 21 in 1916, where Rosa Katzenstein initially continued to live after her husband died on 21 July 1919 and was buried at Ohlsdorf Jewish Cemetery. His religious tax card from the Jewish community notes that his gravestone cost 10,000 RM. Rosa’s son Dalbert died on 26 Mar. 1923.

Following Hermann Katzenstein’s death, Rosa initially continued to run the company, and as of 1921 Oskar Katzenstein and Paula Zendig, née Katzenstein, took over from her. Oskar Katzenstein, born in Bergisch-Gladbach in 1877, was Rosa Katzenstein’s son-in-law, married to her daughter Bertha. He may have belonged to another part of the family. Their daughter Paula had, in the meantime, married the medical doctor Walter Zendig. In 1928, Oskar Katzenstein took over as sole owner of the company, however it did not survive the world economic crisis. In 1931 bankruptcy proceedings were pending but later resolved through a settlement in 1932. In 1935, the company was "officially deleted from the register”.

Under pressure from the National-Socialist regime, Rosa Katzenstein’s married children and their families left Germany: Bertha Katzenstein, now widowed after her husband Oskar’s death, immigrated to Switzerland in 1938. Paula Zendig went to the USA with her family in 1938.

Hugo Katzenstein, who had gone to Leipzig in 1921 and then moved to Frankfurt, was deported from there to Kaunas in Lithuania on 22 Nov. 1941. His date of arrival there was registered as his date of death on 25 Nov. 1941.

Rosa Katzenstein, left behind on her own in Hamburg, was forced to move several times after 1936 in the neighborhoods of Grindel and Harvestehude. She was now living in a sublet. Frequent moves to smaller apartments or rented rooms were common at the time for the Jewish population was forced to clear out of larger apartments. Often they were forced to give up their spacious residences due to increasing poverty.

Rosa Katzenstein’s last move on 3 Dec. 1940 took her to Schäferkampsallee 29. The buildings owned by the Jewish community at Schäferkampsallee 25, 27 and 29 were used, among other purposes, as a retirement home and "Jewish houses”. Rosa Katzenstein, by now 77 years old, was deported from there on 15 July 1942 on the first transport from Hamburg to Thersienstadt, where she perished on 2 Aug. 1942.


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


Stand: September 2019
© Ursula Erler

Quellen: 1; StaH 522-1, 992b, Kultussteuerkarte Hermann Katzenstein, übertragen auf Rosa Katzenstein; 7; Hamburger Adressbuch 1910–1939; Jürgen Sielemann, Recherchen zur Firma Hermann Katzenstein vom 14.3.2013.
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