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Lohhof 15
© Stadtteilarchiv Hamm

Adele Klein (née Simon) * 1876

Lohhof 15 (Hamburg-Mitte, Hamm)

1942 Theresienstadt
ermordet 22.09.1942

Adele Klein, née Simon, born 4 October 1876, deported to Theresienstadt on 15 July 1942, death on 22 September 1942

Lohhof 15 (Hamburg-Mitte, Hamm)

Adele Simon and her twin brother Moritz were the middle of ten children born between 1869 and 1885 in Hamm at river Sieg in the house of Simon Simon (1838) and his wife Rosa, née Wallach (1845). Moritz died at the age of six years. The sisters Ida (1869), Hermine (1870), Bertha (1872), Laura (1874), Valeska (1879), Johanna (1882) and Hedwig (1884) as well as the younger brother Arthur (1885) reached adulthood and married.

After her marriage at the beginning of the 20th century, Adele Simon lived in Recklinghausen, the birthplace of her husband Julius Klein, born December 14, 1875. He was the youngest of the six children of the merchant Joseph Moises Klein (1875) and his wife Mina, née Katz (1841). Julius Klein became insurance director like his brother Louis (1872). The other siblings were Emilie (1866), Helena (1868), Alex (1870) and Rosalie (1874). As far as is known, none of them later followed their sister-in-law to Hamburg.

On January 30, 1902 Adele Klein gave birth to her first daughter, Edith Erna, four years later, on June 16, 1906, Herta. Three months earlier, Adele's father Simon Simon had died in Mannheim at the age of 68, and her mother Rosa moved to her eldest daughter Ida in Paderborn, where her husband Sammy came from. She died there on September 19, 1924.

Edith and Herta attended the private Protestant high school for girls, from 1916 the municipal lyceum, in Recklinghausen and got married in the 1920s. Edith remained in Essen with her husband, the merchant Alfred Baruch, born June 18, 1891, first in Recklinghausen, where her son Arno Günther was born in 1928. Later they moved to Marburg and finally to Essen.

Herta married the dentist Bruno Becher from Hamburg, who had a doctorate in dentistry. In 1932 she gave birth to her first child, Werner, there.

Herta was married to Moritz Simon and lived in Duisburg in the late 1930s. Bertha, married to the businessman Emanuel Hochstetter, lived in Mannheim. Valeska, married to Siegfried Lewin, and Johanna with her husband Max Bloch had settled in Hamburg. Hedwig, married to Reichenberg, lived with her husband David in Cologne, where Laura, married to Max Hirsch, also lived for a long time. Arthur Simon became a doctor, emigrated to the USA and practiced there as Arthur Semone.

A deep cut in Adele Klein's life was the death of her husband Julius in Recklinghausen on July 31, 1934, at the age of 58. His son-in-law Alfred Baruch, who was still living in Recklinghausen at the time, reported his death to the registry office.

Adele Klein moved to her daughter and her wealthy sisters in Hamburg. She initially lived for rent at Lohhof 15 near her daughter Herta Becher in Hamburg-Hamm. On December 19, 1934, she joined the Jewish Community in Hamburg. Since she had no income, she was not assessed for community tax. Her sister Johanna Bloch contributed to her maintenance, as can be proved.

After the death of her husband Max Bloch, Johanna lived at Hartungstraße 5 in the neigbourhood Rotherbaum for some time, until she moved to Klosterallee 13 to live with her sister Valeska Lewin, who was also widowed. As general manager of Martins & Bloch A.G., Max Bloch had left his widow Johanna a fortune after his death in 1928, from which her sisters Adele Klein and Hedwig Reichenberg received monthly payments. In the declaration of assets in 1939, she stated 30 RM for Adele and 15 RM for Hedwig, but these were not permitted as ongoing expenses.

1937 was another decisive year in Adele Klein's life. In April, the granddaughter Ruth Becher was born, and in October her brother-in-law Emanuel Hochstetter, the husband of her sister Bertha, died. After Emanuel Hochstetter's death in Baden-Baden on October 30, 1937, his widow Bertha sold the house in Mannheim, where they had lived until 1937. Bertha Hochstetter now also moved to Hamburg to live with her sisters Valeska Lewin and Johanna Bloch at Klosterallee 13, and appointed Bruno Becher, Adele Klein's son-in-law, as her chief representative. He handled all inheritance matters, including those following Bertha Hochstetter's death in 1940. Adele Klein received 5000 RM as a legacy, which made her financially independent. The Jewish community levied a minimum monthly contribution of 1 RM as a cult tax, but this was waived from mid-1941.

An estate of 5,000 RM meant that the office of the Chief Finance President ordered a "security" over it. This order was issued on 12 December 1940, and although Adele Klein's assets fell below the 5000 RM threshold because of the payment of the inheritance tax of 300 RM, she was forced to transfer 4.700 RM on a blocked account at the Dresdner Bank. She filed for such account herself and informed - ordered by the Chief Finance President – her sisters who had inherited that transfers were only allowed to this account.

As was customary with the "security orders" of property, the owners could dispose "freely" of an approved amount. To determine this amount, the account holders had to list and submit their monthly current expenses. Adele Klein declared 150 RM for living expenses including clothing and 50 RM for other current expenses. She was granted a monthly allowance of 200 RM without any cutbacks. She did not list rent separately, since she lived in the household of her daughter Herta at 55 Hansastrasse and later briefly with her sisters at 13 Klosterallee near Valeska Lewin.

While Adele Klein had to deal with the financial interventions of the Chief Finance President in her life and that of her relatives in Hamburg, her sister-in-law Ida Klein, née Nathan, widow of her husband's oldest brother Alex, emigrated with her children to New York. Her nephew Eugen Sturmthal, Hermione's eldest son, had already emigrated before; he caught up with his mother in 1941. Although Herta Becher's brother-in-law, Heinrich, and his family had already emigrated in 1938, there is no indication of her own emigration intentions or those of her mother and aunts.

In 1941, deportations of Herta Klein's relatives began for the alleged "reconstruction in the East”. They began with transports from West Germany to the ghetto of Litzmannstadt/Lodz.

Adele Klein's sister Hedwig Reichenbach was the first to be deported to Litzmannstadt/Lodz in a transport from Cologne on October 20, 1941. Her eldest daughter Edith Erna Baruch and her husband Alfred followed her from Düsseldorf on October 27, 1941. Nothing is known about her fate in the ghetto of Litzmannstadt, unlike Hedwig Reichenbachs, who was murdered in the Kulmhof extermination camp in May 1942.

With the second and third of the large transports from Hamburg, Adele Klein's younger daughter Herta Becher and her family left the city on November 8, 1941, her husband and father, and on November 18, 1941. They were crammed into the ghetto of Minsk (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de). They were followed by Adele's widowed sister Valeska Lewin (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de), who left for Riga on December 6, 1941.

In January 1942, Adele's brother-in-law Louis Klein fled with his wife Louise, née Lazarus, to the Netherlands, from where they continued on to Belgium and back to the Netherlands, where their deportation in 1942 left their trail.

With the first Hamburg transport of 1942, Johanna Bloch, widowed like her sisters Adele and Valeska, was "evacuated" on July 11, 1942, as the deportation was euphemistically called, whose participants were brought directly to Auschwitz and murdered immediately after their arrival. What news and rumors Adele Klein received about the deportees has not been recorded.

She moved once again, to Hochallee 66, and then in April 1942 the Jewish community accommodated her at Beneckestraße 6. These rooms of the Jewish administration were used as a elderly home. There Adele Klein received the deportation order to the Theresienstadt ghetto on July 15, 1942. The elder Jews had been put back until then, and now they were brought to the "old-age ghetto" in two large transports (and subsequent smaller transports).

This ghetto was completely overcrowded. The new arrivals were accommodated in the bare attic, there was a lack of sanitary facilities and medical care, and diarrhea was rampant. Adele Klein was also a victim. She died two months after her arrival at the age of 65.

Translated by Peter Hubschmid/ Changes: Beate Meyer
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: September 2020
© Hildegard Thevs

1; 2: 314-15 OPF, R 1939/2659, R 1940/0490, R 1940/0101; 3; 4; 5 digital; 7; 9; StaHH 213-13 (Restitution), 12016, 26624, 18785, 39141; 351-11 (Wiedergutmachung), 20052; 332-5 Personenstandsregister; 522-1, Jüdische Gemeinden, 391 Mitgliederliste 1935; 992 e 2 Deportationslisten Bde 1-4;, Museum Terezin, Todesfallanzeigen; Stadtarchiv Recklinghausen, Melderegister; freundliche Hinweise von Franz-Josef Wittstamm: https://spurenimvest.de/2020/07/23/klein-adele/, https://spurenimvest.de/2020/06/12/klein-alex-2/.
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