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Margot Ascher * 1912

Caffamacherreihe 4 (Hamburg-Mitte, Neustadt)

MARGOT ASCHER
JG. 1912
DEPORTIERT 1942
AUSCHWITZ
ERMORDET

further stumbling stones in Caffamacherreihe 4:
Max Ascher

Margot Ascher, b. 4.19.1912 in Hamburg, deported from Berlin to Auschwitz on 11.29.1942
Max Ascher, b. 1.10.1873 in Minden, deported to Theresienstadt on 7.15.1942, murdered in the Treblinka extermination camp on 9.21.1942

Caffamacherreihe 4, in front of the police station (Caffamacherreihe 26)

Max Ascher grew up among five brothers and four sisters in Minden, North Rhine-Westphalia. His father Moses Ascher (b. 7.13.1839) was a "tradesman” and came from Salzkotten in County Büren; his mother Marianne, née Katz (b. 5.20.1843), came from Holland. They married on 2 November 1866 in Minden and, according to the census of late 1880, lived at Rampenloch 3.

Following his school years, Max Ascher learned the trade of paper-hanging and received a master’s diploma. On 25 January 1901 in Hamburg, he married Sophie Dessau (b. 10.23.1880), the daughter of the cigar manufacturer Sally Dessau and Rosa, née Löwenthal. At the time of his marriage, Max lived with his widowed mother at Breitenstrasse 13 in Hanover. Sophie had grown up with her father and his second wife Louise Burchard. She was seven years old when her mother Rosa died on 7 June 1888 at age 33 (a commemorative stone for Louise Dessau lies at Hansastrasse 35).

Max and Sophie Ascher’s oldest daughter was born on 14 March 1905 in Hamburg; she received the name of her prematurely deceased grandmother Rosa. Seven years later came her sister Margot. There were complications with the birth of their youngest daughter, Ruth, on 21 May 1919. Sophie Ascher died five months later on 24 November 1919 in the Ebenezer Hospital in Barmbek-Uhlenhorst. Max Ascher had his wife buried on 26 November at the Ilandkoppel Jewish Cemetery in Ohlsdorf. On the previous day, he had registered himself as a member of the German-Israelite Congregation of Hamburg.

Before World War I, Max Ascher had operated a furniture store with a workshop at Baumeisterstrasse 7, on the corner of Greifswalderstrasse in the St. Georg district. He gave up the business after being called up to Infantry Regiment 75. His wife Sophie had, from 1910 until her death, run an art dealership at Heidenkampsweg 76, where the family also lived. After the war, Max set up a workshop in their 2 ½ room apartment, but he was unable to achieve the stable financial situation of the prewar years. Moreover, during the Inflation, he lost his savings and had finally to apply for welfare assistance. After the death of Sophie Ascher, the underage children and the running of the household were taken care of by Susanne Schuzintek, from Oppeln in Upper Silesia (today, Poland). She came to Hamburg from Berlin, where she had worked as household help. She was supposedly so affectionate that "the children loved her like a mother.”

Margot, the Aschers‘ daughter, received six years of training in dance, along with her regular schooling; her old sister Rosa was also a dancer. In 1933 Rosa, now married to Wagner, lived in Düsseldorf at Schadowstrasse 47. Ruth, the youngest, first attended elementary school at Norderstrasse 165; a higher school education was denied her because she was a Jew. Her wish to learn the decorator’s profession also failed. Thus, on 30 July 1934, she followed her sister Rosa and moved to Luxemburg.

Max Ascher tried to open a workshop on Herrengraben, but independent activity was denied "by the police” in November 1935, whereby his financial situation worsened even more. Even before 1933, antisemitism was visible in a welfare report in which a case worker wrote: "Ascher is an Israelite and, in my opinion, undoubtedly possesses the characteristic business cunning of his race. He has in the past bought furniture at auctions, mostly upholstered goods. He refurbishes them and sells them again.”

In February 1936, Max Ascher traveled to his daughters in Luxemburg, presumably to say farewell to them. Rosa, remarried to Gurewitsch, was the first to leave Luxemburg. Ruth followed her by way of Antwerp in 1937, sailing on the French ship "Croix” to Buenos Aires. As soon as she set foot there, Max Ascher was supposed to have followed. However, for reasons unknown, the plan never materialized.

On the Jewish Communal Religion Tax record for Max Ascher, his middle daughter Margot was recorded in 1933 as "address unknown.” Margot lived as an "artiste” with her two children in Berlin-Charlottenburg. Her daughter Karin Jenny was born on 5 May 1935, her brother Horst, on 19 May 1937. Margot Ascher and her children were deported on 29 November 1942 from Berlin to Auschwitz, she from Eisenacherstrasse 89, the brother and sister from the Auerbach Orphanage at Schönhausener Allee 162. For Karin Ascher, a commemorative stone is at Pestalozzistrasse 14 in Berlin.

After the emigration of his daughters, Max Ascher lived as a sub-lessee at various addresses: in late 1935 at Valentinskamp 71, then at Drehbahn 25, Grossneumarkt 56, and Caffamacherreihe 26. Thereafter, he moved to the Grindelviertel.

Also living in Grindel was his younger brother, the widower Adolf Ascher (b. 12.17.1875). Adolf had come to Hamburg in late 1906 or early 1907 and had in 1908 married Olga Isaac (b. 1.29.1875) in Altona. He worked as a traveling salesman on a commission basis but, as the result of a severe head wound sustained in the First World War, was not able to earn much. The couple lived as sub-lessees in a furnished flat at Klosterallee 100 and received welfare support. Olga Ascher was diabetic; she died on 22 May 1936. Despite have already suffered a stroke, Adolf Ascher was assigned "obligatory labor” in Waltershof. His more or less last voluntarily chosen lodging in the summer of 1939 was as a sub-lessee with the Zimmack (Zimak) family at Rutschbahn 15 (see "Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Eimsbüttel”).

The Ascher brothers, Max and Adolf, both received their deportation orders in the former Samuel-Lewisohn-Foundation at Kleiner Schäferkamp 32, a so-called Jew house. Adolf was deported to Auschwitz on 11 July 1942, Max on 15 July 1942 in the first great transport from Hamburg to the Theresienstadt "Old People’s Ghetto.” Soon afterwards on 21 September 1942, he was deported again to the Treblinka extermination camp.

The second youngest brother, David Ascher (b. 6.20.1877), lived in Amberg in the Upper Palatinate and was deported in early April 1942 from Munich to the Piaski ghetto. Julius Ascher (b. 1.15.1880) lived with his family in Kassel at Moltkestrasse 5. On 10 November 1938, he was taken to the Buchenwald concentration camp, where he, just one month later, on10 December 1938, perished. His wife Klara Ascher, née Goldschmidt (b. 2.15.1887 in Waldkappel), fled to Utrecht in March 1939; she was murdered in Auschwitz on 11 February 1944. The married sisters Dora Levy, née Ascher (b. 2.10.1884) and Lina Karoline Stadler, née Ascher (b. 10.28.1871) were deported from Hanover to Riga on 15 December 1941. They, too, did not survive.

Translator: Richard Levy
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: April 2020
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: 1; 3; 4; 8; StaH 351-11 AfW 42935 (Ascher, Ruth); StaH 351-11 AfW 29693 (Gürewitsch, Rosa); StaH 351-11 AfW 2105 (Ascher, Max); StaH 332-5 Standesämter 2963 u 86/1901; StaH: 351-14 Arbeits- und Sozialfürsorge 905 (Ascher, Max); StaH: 351-14 Arbeits- und Sozialfürsorge 904 (Ascher, Adolf); StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinde Nr. 992 e 2 Band 1; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinde Nr. 992 e 2 Band 4; Auskünfte von Claudia Schoppmann, Berlin, E-Mail vom 14.5.2014; http://www.statistik-des-holocaust.de/list_ger_ber_ot23.html (Zugriff 25.1.2015); https://kobra.bibliothek.uni-kassel.de/bitstream/urn:nbn:de:hebis:34-2013121644679/1/SchicksaleDerJudenKassels.pdf; http://mindener-juden.kommunalarchiv-minden.de (Zugriff 25.1.2015); http://mindener-einwohner.kommunalarchiv-minden.de/getperson.php?personID=I21958&tree=census-1880 (Zugriff 14.6.2016).
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