Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Emma Blitz * 1871

Dillstraße 21 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

HIER WOHNTE
EMMA BLITZ
JG. 1871
DEPORTIERT 1942
THERESIENSTADT
ERMORDET 9.11.1942

further stumbling stones in Dillstraße 21:
Bertha Berges, Charlotte Berges, Marianna Berges, Herbert Cohen, Abraham Freimann, Karl Gänser, Julius Gottschalk, Minna Gottschalk, Hermann Samuel Gottschalk, Ernst August Gottschalk, Karola Gottschalk, Erwin Levinson, Flora Levinson, Hugo Levinson, Bert(h)a Seligmann

Emma Blitz, born on 8 July 1871 in Leer/ East Friesland, deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto on 15 July 1942, murdered there on 9 Nov. 1942

Dillstrasse 21

The unmarried Emma Blitz grew up with two older sisters, Ida (1864–1941 in Minsk, see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de) and Annette (1868–1936), as well as two brothers Adolf Eduard (born in 1874, killed in World War I) and Wilhelm (1876–1940, see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de) in Leer, East Friesland. Four other siblings had already died in infancy. Their father’s name was Eduard Blitz, born in 1840 in Wittmund. He had settled in Leer at an unknown time. There he was actively involved in the Jewish Community. For many years, he worked as a teacher at the school there. Then he turned to business life and founded the local consumer cooperative. His main business was to offer masses of high-quality clothing at low prices, and this enterprise was successful. There was no information about his mother Therese Thekla, née Eller.
The family decided to leave Leer around 1886 and settled in Hamburg. At first, they lived in Hamburg-Neustadt, where the father of the family ran a banking business. A few years later, a new apartment was found in the Grindel quarter, on Heinrich-Barth-Strasse.

Emma Blitz did not train in a profession, but ran her parents’ household until their deaths in 1893 and 1914, respectively. Her parents found their final resting place in the Jewish Cemetery on Ilandkoppel. Through their deaths, Emma inherited a small fortune, on which she lived from then on. A few years later (in 1917), she inherited war bonds from the estate of the Eller couple, presumably relatives in her mother’s family. This resulted in an annual yield of 300 RM (reichsmark) for Emma Blitz.

At some point, the assets were used up. Possibly, for that reason she moved in with her divorced sister Annette Jelinewski in a four-room apartment at Bornstrasse 8 in about 1930. Due to financial problems, they rented two rooms to a married couple, who paid the rent irregularly, if at all. Emma Blitz was forced to apply for welfare assistance and she remained dependent on this modest financial support for the next few years. Her sister Annette could not help much, since she too received only a small pension. The welfare office also asked family members whether they were able to provide financial support. In addition, the agency demanded that Emma Blitz pay for her livelihood from the inherited war bonds. In response, Emma’s brother, the lawyer Wilhelm Blitz, made it clear that this was not possible. This happened at a time when Jews could no longer feel safe in the city, a circumstance increasingly evident in the Grindel quarter.

By then, Emma Blitz was suffering from health problems, so that she frequently went to her family doctor, Schlünz, on Grindelallee. In early 1936, Emma Blitz was examined by an independent medical examiner. This resulted in her admission to the Israelite Hospital, where she received frequent treatment in the course of the following months. Among other things, the hospital certified dangerous blood decomposition, general physical weakness, movement disabilities of the shoulder joints, as well as the diagnoses of infectious arthritis and heart failure combined with severe pain all the way to immobilization. Emma Blitz received a daily hospital allowance of 4.50 RM from her health insurance company.

The next stroke of fate hit her with the death of her sister Annette on 19 Sept. 1936. From then on, she was no longer able to keep the apartment. She found new accommodation with the Berges family at Dillstrasse 21. By 1940, the Berges family no longer resided in Hamburg, so Emma Blitz was forced to move again. She found a place to stay at the Hesse-Stift, a charitable foundation at Dillstrasse 15. The purpose of the foundation was to provide rent-free apartments to needy unmarried or married "Israelites” (Jews). From 1942 onward, this building was designated as a "Jews’ house” ("Judenhaus”).

Shortly after her seventy-first birthday, the Gestapo deported Emma Blitz to the "ghetto for the elderly” ("Altersghetto”) in Theresienstadt on 15 July 1942. There she died on 9 Nov. 1942.

Let us look at the biographical traces her sisters left behind: Sister Ida Blitz, who was seven years older, lived from casual work as a cleaner and from welfare support. In the end, she lived as a subtenant with Alegra Benezra (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de) at Rothenbaumchausse 83, from where the Gestapo deported her to the Minsk Ghetto on 18 Nov. 1941, where she perished. A Stolperstein in front of the house at Rothenbaumchaussee 83 commemorates her fate.

At an unknown date, Annette Blitz had married Meyer Jelinewski (1866–1943 in Theresienstadt, see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de), who was born in East Prussia. Their son Alfred was born in Elmshorn on 14 June 1894. After the divorce from her husband, Annette moved with her son to the Grindel quarter. Alfred studied medicine and received his doctorate in 1921. He supported his mother financially as best he could. Annette Jelinewski died a natural death in 1936. Her son fled via the Netherlands to the USA in 1939. His Christian wife Hertha followed him with their son.

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

Stand: December 2020
© Sonja Zoder

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 9; StaH 351-14 Arbeits- und Sozialfürsorge -Sonderakten; Meyer, Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der Hamburger Juden 1933-1945, S. 192, 222, 223, Hamburg 2007; Lohmeyer, Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Eimsbüttel, Band 1, S. 320, Hamburg 2012; div. Hamburger Adressbücher; URL: http://zeitzeugenarchiv. gwminsk.com/de/archiv/hamburg/blitz-ida.
Zur Nummerierung häufig genutzter Quellen siehe Link "Recherche und Quellen".