Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Henriette und Philipp Lehmann
© Marianne Wilke

Henriette Lehmann (née Samuel) * 1880

Hellkamp 31 (Eimsbüttel, Eimsbüttel)

1941 Riga
ermordet

further stumbling stones in Hellkamp 31:
Philipp Lehmann

Philipp Lehmann, born 19 Sep. 1876 in Wiesbaden, deported 6 Dec. 1941 to Riga
Henriette Lehmann, née Samuel, born 7 Sep. 1880 in Teterow, deported 6 Dec. 1941 to Riga

Hellkamp 31

Hermann Lehmann, born 17 July 1903 in Bremen, arrested after the November Pogrom 1938, held in the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp until 12 Dec. 1938, deported 8 Nov. 1941 to Minsk
Regina Lehmann, née Salomon, born 11 May 1902 in Treis, deported 8 Nov. 1941 to Minsk

Durchschnitt 5, Rotherbaum

The two Stolpersteine for Philipp and Henriette Lehmann at Hellkamp 31 were unveiled on 23 July 2008. The ceremony was organized by Philipp Lehmann’s granddaughter and her family, in memory of her grandparents.

Philipp Lehmann was born in 1879 in Wiesbaden. He had two brothers and three sisters: Leopold, Georg, Rosa, Bertha, and Tilly. The family lived in Bad Ems near Koblenz. None of the sisters married. They ran a kosher boarding house for Jewish guests. At the turn of the century, Bad Ems was a popular spa resort for Jewish holiday-makers.

Philipp Lehmann and his first wife Bertha, née Kriegsmann (*1873), who was also his cousin and from Wiesbaden, lived first in Bremen, and later in Hamburg. The couple had three sons: Adolf (*1913) and Hermann (*1903) were born in Bremen, Karl (*1913) in Hamburg. Bertha died of cancer in 1917 in the Israelite Hospital. Philipp married Henriette (Henny) Samuel in 1918. Their daughter Hedwig (Hedi) was born in August 1919.

Philipp fought in the First World War. He had volunteered for military service, and considered himself a good German. When the Nazis came to power he refused to believe that his life was in danger. He rejected warnings and the suggestion to think about emigrating, even though he had to watch as his sons Hermann and Karl were sent to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp and held there for several weeks after the November Pogrom in 1938.

Philipp Lehmann and his family had been living on the second floor of the building at Hellkamp 31 since 1912. He worked as an insurance salesman for the Norddeutsche Versicherungsgesellschaft from 1903 into the 1920s. He was department manager during his final years there. He then opened his own business, but had to give it up and worked for the state in the Office for Technology and Engineering from 1926 until 23 November 1935. He was fired because of his "non-Aryan” heritage. He was not entitled to a pension. A senate resolution granted him a "revocable cost of living subsidy” of 742.07 Reichsmarks from 1 June 1936 to 31 March 1939. It was cancelled in May 1939. He also received unemployment benefits of 12.30 Reichsmarks per week beginning on 10 December 1935.

He took any work he could get. From May 1938 he worked for Frau Fanny Fraenkel in her household, from July 1939 to July 1940 as a laborer for Karl Vogt, and from July 1940 to January 1941 laying cables and doing excavation work for 40 Reichsmarks per week.

The entire family were members of the International Organization (formerly Order) of Good Templars. Philipp had had alcohol problems, and he and his first wife Bertha joined the Friedenssstern Lodge in Eimsbüttel at Moorkamp 5 in late 1910 or early 1911. His son Adolf joined a Good Templars children’s group in 1911, as did his brother Karl in 1913 when he was nine years old. Both children remained involved in the organization, and eventually met their wives there. The family was expelled from the Order on 19 September 1935, shortly before the Nuremberg Laws were proclaimed. It was a bitter experience. The Order of the Good Templars, founded in 1851 in the US, was not only a temperance organization, but also had extensive societal goals. The founding fathers held that all people are the children of one god, and that thus every person was unique and none should be discriminated against based on his or her religion, heritage, or gender. The number of Jewish members was very limited before 1933. 18 months after the Nuremberg Laws were passed, the German Good Templars changed their constitution at their annual convention in Hamburg, adding the passage: "Good Templars must be of Aryan heritage according to the Nuremberg Laws.” The motion remained uncommented in the minutes, except that it was approved unanimously. The Lehmann family had long since been expelled, and now Lilly, Adolf’s wife, who was non-Jewish and therefore not subject to the expulsion, left the Order in solidarity to the family. Only four Good Templars remained in contact with the family over the following years.

In 1936, Philipp and Henny were forced to leave the apartment where they had lived for so many years. They had to move into a "Jews’ house” at Schlachterstraße 42 (present-day Großneumarkt). They were later moved to the "Jews’ house” at Dillstraße 15 III. It was at this address that they received their "evacuation orders,” which read: "…You are to report on 6 December to the Moorweide assembly point. Each person may bring: one suitcase weighing no more than 50 kg [110 lbs], bedding and blankets, provisions for 3 days, up to 100 Reichsmarks.”

They and more than 750 other Jews from Hamburg, and 135 from Lübeck, Kiel, and small villages in Schleswig-Holstein, were herded into freight cars and delivered to the Jungfernhof Concentration Camp near Riga. In the Riga Ghetto the SS was still busy making room for the new arrivals by executing the 27,500 native Jews. Philipp and Henny Lehmann were 65 and 61 years old. They had no chance of survival. Their names are on the Lehmann family gravestone in Oxford.

Three of their four children survived. Karl and Hedwig emigrated to England. Adolf was married to a non-Jew and had two children, Marianne and Helmut. Adolf was protected from deportation by his "privileged mixed marriage” status.

Hermann, a pharmacist, and his wife Regina (née Marcus, *1902) were not able to emigrate. Both were deported to Minsk on 8 November 1941. Their last address was at Grindelberg 9, as boarders with the Seidel family.

After the war, Lilly and Adolf acquiesced to the pressure from Good Templar friends, and rejoined the organization. Returning was particularly difficult for Lilly, so great had been her disappointment with the organization.


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

Stand: March 2017
© Susanne Lohmeyer

Quellen: 4; 5; StaH 332-5 Standesämter, 771 + 553/1917; StaH 351-11 AfW 3043; StaH 522-1, Jüdische Gemeinden, 992e2 Bd 3, Deportationsliste; Rede von Hans-Günther Schmidt bei der Enthüllung der Stolpersteine; Interview mit Marianne Wilke am 11.7.1990; "Wo Wurzeln waren …", S. 152ff.; Gesche-M. Cordes, Stolpersteine …, S. 94.
Zur Nummerierung häufig genutzter Quellen siehe Link "Recherche und Quellen".

Speech given by Marianne Wilke at the unveiling of the Stolpersteine for Henny and Philipp Lehmann

Philipp and Henny Lehmann, in whose memory these Stolpersteine have been placed, are my grandparents. They lived here, at Hellkamp 31 on the second floor, from 1912 onwards.

My grandfather was born in 1876 in Wiesbaden. He worked as an insurance salesman at the Norddeutsche Versicherungsgesellschaft until 1920, and later for the Hamburg Port Authority. My grandmother, who was four years younger than her husband, was a housewife, as was usual for women at the time. Both were members of the Jewish Community.

Their children Hermann, Adolf (our father), Karl, and their half-sister Hedy grew up in this building.

A poem written by Philipp while he was a soldier in the First World War to our father has survived. In it he describes himself as a good German, who must defend his fatherland.

The harassment and persecution of the Jews in Germany began when Hitler came to power in 1933. They were to serve as scapegoats for all of the evil in the world. As early as 1935 a law was passed which stated that "Only those state subjects with German or related blood are citizens of the Reich…”. This law made all Jewish Germans "non-Germans,” and thus enemies.

Philipp Lehmann couldn’t and wouldn’t understand. In his mind he was a German, and he brusquely rejected all warnings to consider emigrating.
In 1936 he and Henny were forced to leave the apartment in which they had lived for nearly 30 years and move into a "Jew’s house” at Schlachterstraße 42 (present-day Großneumarkt), then later to one at Dillstraße 15. Only then did Philipp accept reality.

After the November Pogroms in 1938, in which all synagogues in the Reich were destroyed or burnt down, his sons Hermann and Karl were held in the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp for several weeks. When they were finally released they strongly urged him to consider emigrating.

Karl, his wife Else, and Hedy fled to England. Hermann and his wife Regina were deported to Minsk on 8 November 1941. Philipp and Henny received their "evacuation orders” in December 1941, which read: "…You are to report on 6 December to the Moorweide assembly point. Each person may bring: one suitcase weighing no more than 50 kg [110 lbs], bedding and blankets, provisions for 3 days, up to 100 Reichsmarks.”

On 6 December 1931, they and more than 700 Jews from Hamburg and 90 from Lübeck were sent to the Jungfernhof Concentration Camp near Riga in Latvia. In Riga, the SS had executed about 4000 Latvian Jews on 30 November and more than 27,000 on 8 December in order to "make room” for the German Jews.

Philipp and Henny Lehmann were 65 and 61 years old when they were deported. They had no chance of survival, as they were too old to be assigned to a work detail. We never heard from them again.

Their names, along with those of Hermann and Regina, are carved on the Lehmann family gravestone at the cemetery in Oxford. We are glad to see them memorialized here in Hamburg with these Stolpersteine.

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

Stand: March 2017
© Marianne Wilke