Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Gabriel Jacob Lehr * 1861

Barmbeker Markt 37 (Hamburg-Nord, Barmbek-Süd)

HIER WOHNTE
DR. GABRIEL JAKOB
LEHR
JG. 1861
DEPORTIERT 1942
THERESIENSTADT
ERMORDET 6.9.1942

Gabriel Jakob (Georg) Lehr, born 11 Oct. 1861 in Posen, deported 15 July 1942 to Theresienstadt, died there 6 Sep. 1942

Barmbeker Markt 37 (Am Markt 37)

Gabriel Jakob "Georg” Lehr was born on 11 October 1861 in Posen to the Jewish couple Abraham and Bertha Lehr. After studying medicine, he received his license in 1888 and settled in Hamburg as a general practitioner. His wife was Hedwig Kaufmann (*31 March 1875), the daughter of Simon and Paula (Gumpertz) Kaufmann. Georg and Hedwig had two sons, Hans Walter (*31 August 1895) and Fritz Herbert (*6 June 1900).

In 1909 Georg Lehr was licensed for all health insurers. At about this time he moved his practice from the Colonnaden to the market square in Barmbek. The family lived in a large, 6½-room apartment at Immenhof 16.

Georg Lehr had become a well-known ENT specialist in Hamburg. His success increased his wealth. Later, contemporaries recalled that the apartment was decorated with valuable and exclusive items.

The couple’s sons chose other professions. Hans Walter studied law and worked for the Hamburg legation in Berlin. He was killed in an avalanche in Switzerland at age 30. The younger brother, Fritz Herbert, had a doctorate in art history and also lived in Berlin. He suffered greatly from the Nazi persecution of the Jews, and when he lost his job as an editor "on racial grounds” he took his life.

The parents were now alone in Hamburg and had no grandchildren. Hedwig Lehr became severely ill. Her husband Georg lost his health insurance certification on 1 January 1938, and on 30 September the licenses of all Jewish doctors in Hamburg were revoked. Shortly thereafter, on 13 October, two days after his 77th birthday, his wife died. A former neighbor later wrote that she had breast cancer.

About two years before her death, the couple had moved to a 3½-room apartment at Eppendorfer Landstraße 30. Georg Lehr remained there until 1941.

In June 1939, the Foreign Exchange Office of the Chief Tax Authority opened a file on Georg Lehr. It contained a memo which read: "Dr. Lehr submitted the attached inventory of assets, according to which he has only minimal assets aside from a life annuity. No security order is necessary.”

The hand-written inventory, dated 1 June 1939, listed surprisingly low figures: gold bonds with the Hamburgische Hypothekenbank valued at 600 Reichsmarks, a 200£ Hamburg government bond, and a 300£ Brazilian government bond. A checking account with the Deutsche Bank had 233.14 Reichsmarks, and one with the Hamburg Post Bank 1,147.89 Reichsmarks. He also had a life annuity of 3,614 Reichsmarks annually, and a pension from the Health Insurance Association of 95 Reichsmarks. It was signed Dr. med. Gabriel Jacob Israel Lehr, Eppendorfer Landstraße 30, Hamburg 20.

A letter from the Nordischen Assekuranzcontor to the Chief Tax Authority, dated 20 May 1942 read: "Dr. … Lehr, of Beneckestraße 4, Hamburg 13, has held a pension insurance policy with the Baseler Lebensversicherungsgesellschaft since 9 December 1938. He receives a quarterly pension of 903.65 Reichsmarks.”

The letter inquired as to the method of payment, as a new edict prohibited cash payments to Jews.

"The pensioner requests that the money be paid into the account of Dr. Simon’s Home for the Elderly, where he is living. (…) Which methods of payment are available to us?” The answer: "I have not issued a security order on Dr. Lehr’s accounts. There are therefore no currency-law-related reservations about paying the pension to him in cash or to the home for the elderly.”
This file raises the question as to what happened to Georg Lehr’s wealth, which we can assume was considerable, and which was not severely reduced through compulsory taxes and levies. His pension may be the explanation, since one of the few methods available to Jews, until 1941, of barring the Nazi regime’s access to their savings was to exchange it for a lifetime, non-transferable life insurance policy. Lehr had purchased the pension policy in December 1938.

Beginning in September 1941, Georg Lehr had to wear the yellow star. It was in this year that he moved from Eppendorfer Landstraße to Hallerstraße 72, and in 1942 to the Jewish Home for the Elderly at Beneckestraße 4. It was here that he received his deportation orders. He was deported, at nearly 81 years old, to Theresienstadt on 15 July 1942, where he died two months later on 6 September.


Translator: Amy Lee
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: March 2017
© Erika Draeger

Quellen: 1; 2; 3; 5; 8; StaHH 314-15, OFP, R 1941/223a; StaHH 314-15, OFP, 9 UA 8; StaHH 351-11, AfW, Abl. 2008/1, 731, Lehr, Georg; von Viliez: Mit aller Kraft verdrängt, S. 329; Bajohr: "Arisierung in Hamburg", S. 153ff., S. 369.
Zur Nummerierung häufig genutzter Quellen siehe Link "Recherche und Quellen".