Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Hertha Liebermann * 1883

Großneumarkt 56 (Hamburg-Mitte, Neustadt)

HIER WOHNTE
HERTHA LIEBERMANN
JG. 1883
DEPORTIERT 1942
THERESIENSTADT
ERMORDET 1943
AUSCHWITZ

further stumbling stones in Großneumarkt 56:
Sella Cohen, Bertha Cohen, A(h)ron Albert Cohn, Thekla Daltrop, David Elias, Theresia Elias, Louisa(e) Elias, Helene Martha Fernich, Martha Minna Fernich, Camilla Fuchs, Siegmund Josephi, Robert Martin Levy, Fritz Mainzer, Elsa Nathan, Ruth Nathan, Siegfried Neumann, Fanny Neumann, Lieselotte Neumann, Mirjam Neumann, Max Leo Neumann, Therese Neumann, Bela Neumann, Josef Polack, Bertha Polack, Eva Samuel, Rosa Therese Weil, Bernhard Weil, Rosa Weinberg, Siegfried Weinberg

Eva Elsa Samuel, née Liebermann, born 30 Sept. 1884 in Hamburg, deported 6 Dec. 1941 to Riga-Jungfernhof
Hertha Liebermann, born 15 Sept. 1883 in Hamburg, deported 15 Sept. 1942 to Theresienstadt, deported 23 Jan. 1943 to Auschwitz

Großneumarkt 56

The sisters Eva Elsa and Hertha Liebermann were daughters of the Jewish couple Harry Liebermann (born 14 Mar. 1851) and Auguste, née Cohn (born 16 Jan. 1850), who had wed in Hamburg on 20 Nov. 1879. Their father, son of an accountant, spent his childhood in the Hamburg neighborhood of Neustadt. Trained in business, he took over the company S. H. Beit, Patentbuchstaben-Schilder und Kautschukstempel-Fabrik, a sign maker and rubber stamp factory in Neustadt’s Neustraße 86 (today Neustädter Straße) in 1872. Their eldest children were born at Neustraße 2 in Neustadt, Clara on 12 Aug. 1882, Hertha followed on 15 Sept. 1883 and Eva almost exactly one year later on 30 Sept. 1884. Clara died on 21 Feb. 1885 at the age of two. Hertha and Eva then grew up in Hamburg’s Altstadt, first at Catharinenstraße 16 (today Katharinenstraße) where her sister Martha was born. Martha passed away at the age of 4 on 29 Mar. 1890. Four years later the sisters lost their mother. Auguste Liebermann died at the age of 44 on 11 Nov. 1894 in their home at Mattentwiete 2. Harry Liebermann moved his store to Große Bäckerstraße 9 in downtown Hamburg. By the time he died on 13 Mar. 1916, he had moved back to Kohlhöfen 24 in Neustadt,.

Eva Elsa was called Else in her family. She attended the Higher Daughters’ School and worked as a bookkeeper and secretary for the banking business M. B. Franck & Co. at Neß 1 until her wedding. She married the printer Richard Sally Samuel (born in Minden on 9 Nov. 1881) in Minden, Westphalia on 7 Mar. 1919.

After graduating from high school, Richard Samuel went into his father’s trade. In Koslin he trained as a printer. His father Semmy (Samson) Samuel (born 15 Oct. 1847, died 10 Mar. 1928 in Minden) owned a printing office in Minden and a stationary shop where Richard began working after completing his training. His mother Bertha (Betty), née Heine (born 26 Aug. 1853, died 22 Feb. 1938 in Minden), was a native of Hamburg. After their wedding, Richard Samuel moved to Hamburg with Else and started his own business with his sister-in-law Hertha Liebermann at Laufgraben 2, at the corner of Rentzelstraße. Else and Richard’s only child, their daughter Gerda, was born on 16 June 1921.

Hertha Liebermann never married. She was the official owner of the printing office the two had jointly founded, and she handled the customers. In their business they also sold rubber stamps and office supplies. Their household, a four-room apartment, was located above the printing office.

The poor economic situation was probably the reason Hertha Liebermann and Richard Samuel sold the printing office in 1924. However the purchaser soon had to file for bankruptcy and could not pay the installments for the purchase price, so they once again took over part of the business at the end of 1925. The printing presses were given in mortgage under the new owner, and they were behind on the rent. Despite their best efforts, they were not able to make up for this wretched financial situation over the following years and ultimately had to give up their printing shop.

From 1928, Hertha Liebermann worked as a maid at various locations, such as at Hansastraße 81 (for the Warischs) and at Grindelallee 58 where she also was given accommodation. Hertha Liebermann lived the longest with the widow M. Richter who ran a lunch counter at Rutschbahn 10. She moved with the widow to Schlüterweg 10 in 1937.

As of 1938 Hertha Liebermann had to work as an assistant at the sewing shop on Rosenallee because she was receiving welfare support. Then she was assigned to do gardening at the Botanical School garden at Ralph Baberadt-Straße 42 in Fuhlsbüttel. In Feb. 1939, she moved in with her now widowed sister Else Samuel who had been living in a two-room apartment in the Jewish Herz-Josef-Levy Foundation at Großneumarkt 56 since Oct. 1930. Her brother-in-law Richard Samuel had passed away on 28 Feb. 1935 at Israelite Hospital. Her niece Gerda was in England – she had been taken to safety on 15 Dec. 1938 on a Kindertransport. After finishing her formal education at the Israelite Daughters’ School on Carolinenstraße, Gerda had begun an apprenticeship at the company of Moritz Pollack, Metal Goods Agents at Rathausmarkt 16, which she was unable to complete.

Her mother Else had to move in with the widow Julie Frank (see her entry) in the "Jewish house” at Durchschnitt 8, three months prior to her deportation. On 6 Dec. 1941 she was taken on a transport to the makeshift camp at Jungfernhof Manor about six kilometers away from the Riga Ghetto because mass shootings were being carried out in the ghetto.

Else’s sister-in-law Meta Blau, née Samuel (born 20 Dec. 1904), who was deported from Minden to Riga on 10 Dec. 1941 and later to a suburb of Riga called Mühlgraben, had to perform forced labor in a branch office of the Military Uniform Department of the Wehrmacht. After the war, she stated: "At some point in the year 1942 I received a little note in my sister-in-law Else’s handwriting, sending me greetings from the Jungfernhof camp near Riga, a note that had been smuggled through by fellow prisoners. In about May 1944, I received a verbal message from my sister-in-law at Mühlengraben concentration camp. Should the woman … meet us, she should say she was still alive. I tried to let her know that she should report to Mühlengraben for work. That was the last sign of life from her. No later than July 1944, I again met the woman who had brought me the last message, she told me my sister-in-law had been taken away with the others, she did not know where.”

In Mar. 1942 Jungfernhof camp was liquidated. During Operation Dünamünde in Bikernieki Forest, about 1700 people were shot to death by security police and Latvian helpers. Those who were able to work were taken to Riga Ghetto. Those who were still alive when Riga Ghetto was cleared out in Nov. 1943 were taken to Kaiserwald concentration camp. When and where Else Samuel perished remains unresolved. She was declared dead at the end of 1945.

Her sister Hertha Liebermann was nearly deaf in her left ear and blind in her left eye when she was deported from the Jewish old age home at Sedanstraße 23 to Theresienstadt on 15 Sept. 1942. She did not survive the next transport to Auschwitz on 23 Jan. 1943.

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

Stand: May 2020
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: 1; 5; StaH 351-14 Arbeits- und Sozialfürsorge 1472 (Liebermann, Hertha); StaH 351-11 AfW 44187 (Samuel, Gerda); StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinde Nr. 992 e 2 Band 3; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinde Nr. 992 e 2 Band 4; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 2019 u 3314/1882; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 2058 u 4363/1883; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 2083 u 4624/1884; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 269 u 748/1890; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 7871 u 487/1892; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 360 u 2055/1894; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 8011 u 76/1912; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 748 u 246/1916; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 1038 u 90/1935; Jahn: Riga-Mühlgraben, in: Der Ort des Terrors, S. 79–82.
Zur Nummerierung häufig genutzter Quellen siehe Link "Recherche und Quellen".