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Manfred Meier * 1909

Laufgraben 39 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

1941 Lodz

further stumbling stones in Laufgraben 39:
Günter Max Meier, Hedwig Meier, Berl Meier, Eduard Vogel, Erwin Vogel, Lotte Vogel, Selly Jenny Vogel

Manfred Meier, born on 20 Dec. 1909 in Hamburg, deported on 25 Oct. 1941 to Lodz, murdered in Aug. 1944 (?) in the Chelmno extermination camp
Hedwig Meier, née Vogel, born on 23 Feb. 1908 in Hamburg, deported on 25 Oct. 1941 to Lodz, murdered in Aug. 1944 (?) in the Chelmno extermination camp
Günther Max Meier, born on 11 Mar. 1937 in Hamburg, deported on 25 Oct. 1941 to Lodz, murdered in Aug. 1944 (?) in the Chelmno extermination camp

Laufgraben 39

Manfred Meier was born as the oldest child of Max (born on 24 Apr. 1882) and Rosa Meier, née Meyer (born on 16 Jan. 1882). Max and Rosa Meier had been married since 28 Jan. 1909. The family also included the two younger brothers of Manfred: M. Henry (born on 15 May 1915) and Lothar (born on 30 Jan. 1919), as well as Lothar’s twin sister Anita (born on 30 Jan. 1919). The couple’s first residential address listed on the membership card of the Hamburg Jewish Community is Schlachterstrasse 47 on the third floor, a building that accommodated rent-free or very low-rent apartments (Freiwohnungen) of the Jewish Lazarus-Gumpel Foundation for Jews that managed to cover food expenses but failed to raise funds for rent. They lived there rent-free. Manfred Meier and his siblings grew up in extremely humble circumstances. The father worked as a messenger, warehouse worker, or dockworker to earn a living. He fought as a soldier in World War I and due to a war injury, he became largely unfit for work afterwards. Starting in 1919, he had to draw unemployment benefits and from 2 Sept. 1920 onward, a disability pension. He died in the Eppendorf University Hospital on 2 July 1924 and he was buried in the Ohlsdorf Cemetery. At the time, Manfred Meier was thirteen and a half years old. Soon after Max Meier’s death, Rosa Meier and the four children moved to Agathenstrasse 3 on the second floor, a multi-story building built at the turn of the century and owned by the Nanny-Jonas Foundation (in 1942, it was incorporated into the Vaterstädtische Stiftung [a charitable foundation] through a forced sale and – after initially being used as a "Jews’ house” ("Judenhaus") – destroyed by air raids in 1943).
As a widow, Rosa M. received a modest war widow’s pension and for the children a supplementary orphans’ pension, which did not cover her living expenses, however. Thus, the family was compelled to apply for additional assistance from the "Hamburg financial relief fund for war-disabled persons” ("Hamburger Wirtschaftshilfe für Kriegsbeschädigte”) and from the district care office of the Jewish Community. This involved small loans as well as a variety of benefits in kind, such as, e.g., clothing, money for coal, or vouchers for kosher food (matzoth).

Not only were the financial circumstances of the family "unsatisfactory” but so was the medical situation, as noted in the welfare office file. Frequent hospital stays of the mother and all kinds of illnesses of the children resulted in the German-Israelitic Community working towards having the guardianship authority appoint a "counsel” for raising the children. The guardian, Jacob R. Rothschild, broker at the Hamburg metal exchange, residing in Hamburg 37, at Hochallee 52, arranged, among other things, several stays at health resorts for the children.
Despite the precarious circumstances of the family, all of the four children received occupational training: Henry as a plumber, Lothar as a decorator, and Anita completed a tailor’s apprenticeship. After having attended the Talmud Tora School from Apr. 1916 until 1924, Manfred went to work as an apprentice for the hairdresser Franz Klick, at Quickbornstrasse 17. After completing his apprenticeship, he continued to work at the company that trained him. At times, he was unemployed, especially in the period after 1933. Between 1934 and 1938, he was able to pay no or just a modest amount of Jewish religious tax (Kultussteuer) to the Jewish Community.

On 24 Oct. 1935, Manfred Meier married Hedwig Vogel (born on 23 Feb. 1908), the daughter of the merchant Eduard Vogel (born on 4 June 1882) and his wife Selly, née Rundstein, (born on 9 Jan. 1887 in Altona). She did not pursue any gainful employment after getting married.
Her family of origin, the Vogels, had lived with the four children Hedwig, Ivan Isaak (born on 18 Feb. 1918), Erwin Max (born on 7 Feb. 1915), and Werner Martin (born on 14 Feb. 1924) at Schlachterstrasse 40/42, building no. 8, later at Oelkersallee 38. In the 1940/1942 directories, the family was still listed at Oelkersallee 38, although they were registered with the authorities as residing at Laufgraben 39 as early as 1939, being deported from there to the Lodz Ghetto in Oct. 1941 (In 1943, the house at Oelkersallee 38 was destroyed in air raids and replaced with a new building in the 1950s).
The young married couple, Manfred and Hedwig Meier, initially lived with Hedwig’s parents at Oelkersallee 38, then at Rutschbahn 5, and at the time of their deportation (again with Hedwig’s parents) at Laufgraben 39. On 11 Mar. 1937, son Günther Max was born.
During the Pogrom of Nov. 1938, Manfred M. was taken into "protective custody” ("Schutzhaft”) together with 800–1000 Hamburg Jews and committed to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he received prisoner number 10,862 and was detained in prison section 38. It can no longer be established whether Manfred Meier was compelled to put down his intention to emigrate in writing. He was released on 17 Jan. 1939 to go to Hamburg, returning to Laufgraben 39, his last address prior to the deportation on 25 Oct. 1941 to the Lodz Ghetto.
By that time, Manfred, Hedwig, and four-and-a-half-year-old Günther Max, as well as Hedwig’s brother Erwin Max with his wife Lotte, née Koretz (born on 15 Dec. 1910), lived there with Hedwig’s parents in an apartment measuring about 70 square meters (some 750 sq ft.).

Hedwig’s brother Ivan Isaak Vogel and his wife Hilde, née Gerson (born on 16 Dec. 1907) lived at Bornstrasse 25. They too received the deportation order for the transport on 25 Oct. 1941 to the Lodz Ghetto. On the deportation list, Manfred and Hedwig Meier and Günther Max are recorded under numbers 621, 622, and 623.

In the Lodz Ghetto, Manfred, Hedwig, and Günther Max were initially assigned accommodation at Ruben Strasse 2, apartment 40, then at Pfeffergasse 10, apartment 5, and eventually – on 16 Apr. 1944 – at Pfeffergasse 10, apartment 3. They shared these quarters with Hedwig’s parents and her brothers Erwin Max and Ivan.

Hedwig had been forced to set out on the deportation in an advanced stage of pregnancy, delivering at the Lodz ghetto hospital in Hanseatenstrasse on 13 Nov. 1941 their second son, who was named Berl. The ghetto chronicle lists Hedwig both as a homemaker and as a plain seamstress.

When Hedwig, Günther Max (by then five and a half years old), and Berl (6 months old) received an "expulsion order” ("Ausweisungsbefehl”) for 4 May 1942, Manfred Meier tried to secure a deferral by pointing to his employer, as two petitions he submitted reveal. The initial rejection, "ODOWA,” was changed to "Nadkontyngent,” i.e., "exceeding the necessary quota,” a positive decision. Thus, the family of four was able to continue staying together for more than two years, i.e., past 2 Apr. 1944, as the registration, de-registration and re-registration forms of the "Eldest of the Jews” ("Älteste der Juden”) in Lodz document. They were probably murdered after the order for final liquidation of the ghetto in the Chelmno extermination camp in Aug. 1944.

Hedwig’s sister-in-law Lotte perished as early as 3 Sept. 1942. Her husband, Erwin Max, listed in the ghetto as a decorator/painter and in the very end as an excavator, and his brother Ivan Vogel performed forced labor outside the camp from 1943 onward. After Lotte’s death, Erwin Max Vogel got married a second time in the setting of a ritual wedding ceremony on 18 Apr. 1943, to Frajida Kosdowska. He was registered as residing at Pfeffergasse 10, apartment 5, as late as 6 May 1943. His last address in the ghetto was Gnesener Strasse when he was detailed for external forced labor. Together with his brother Ivan Isaak Vogel, he reached the Buchenwald concentration camp on a large-scale transport on 18 Jan. 1945. There, the first "death marches” left the camp on 7 April. The Vogel brothers’ exact dates of death are not known.

Hedwig’s mother, Selly Vogel, was "resettled” ("umgesiedelt”) from the Lodz Ghetto along with approx. 1,200 Jews in connection with "Aktion Gehsperre” [literally, "operation walking block”] on 12 Sept. 1942 and murdered in gas vans in the Chelmno extermination camp.
Hedwig’s father, Eduard Vogel, survived the time in the ghetto. Two years later, on 25 Nov. 1949, he died and was buried in the Lodz Jewish Cemetery.
Hedwig Meier’s younger brother, Werner Martin, survived, for it had been possible to take him to safety on a "children transport” (Kindertransport) to Britain in Dec. 1938. We know nothing about his subsequent fate.
Manfred’s mother, Rosa Meier, his brother Henry, and his wife Inge, née Rosendorf (born on 27 Sept. 1917), as well as their daughter Bela (born on 1 Mar. 1940) and Manfred’s brother Lothar and his twin sister Anita, too, were all deported to the Minsk Ghetto on 8 and 18 Nov. 1941, respectively, and murdered there.


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

Stand: April 2018
© Brigitte Hübner

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; StaH 351-14, 1577 Wohlfahrtsbehörde Fürsorgeakten Bd II, III; StaH 522-1, 731 Bd. 7 Friedhofsregister Ohlsdorf; StaH 741-4 Sa 1243 Jüdische Gemeinde, Talmud Thora Schule; StaH 992e-2 Jüdische Gemeinde Bd. 1,2 Deportationsliste 25. 10. 1941 Lodz; StaH Hausmeldekartei, Altkartei B Film 2446-2448.; StaH 361-2 II Oberschulbehörde II; StaH 362-6/10 Talmud Thora Schule; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinde 705 Bd. 10; StaH 522-1 702b Jüdische Gemeinde Heiratsregister; Brief vom 23.7.2014 Fritz Neubauer >fritz.neubauer@uni-bielefeld.de.
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