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Hermann Simon Hirsch * 1879

Hütten Ecke Enckeplatz (ggü. Nr. 12) (Hamburg-Mitte, Neustadt)

HIER WOHNTE
HERMANN SIMON
HIRSCH
JG. 1879
DEPORTIERT 1941
MINSK
ERMORDET

further stumbling stones in Hütten Ecke Enckeplatz (ggü. Nr. 12):
Jenny Hirsch

Hermann Simon Hirsch, born on 1 Dec. 1879 in Berlin, deported on 8 Nov. 1941 to Minsk
Jenny Hirsch, born Weile, born on 6 Sept. 1876 in Prechlau (today Przechlewo in Poland), deported on 8 Nov. 1941 to Minsk

Hütten, opposite Enckeplatz (Hütten 123)

Two Stolpersteine on the sidewalk along Hütten opposite Enckeplatz commemorate the married couple Jenny and Hermann Hirsch. The former corner building, where they had lived for many years on the fifth floor, was destroyed in the summer of 1943 during the series of air raids on Hamburg.

Hermann Hirsch was born as the son of Leopold Hirsch and Bertha, née Edel, in Berlin. There he grew up with two brothers and a sister. His wife Jenny, née Weile, came from Prechlau (today Przechlewo in Poland) in the West Prussian Schlochau District. She had three siblings: Brother Emil (born on 24 May 1884) lived as a merchant in Cologne, later in Switzerland, and Clara Gordon, née Weile (born on 28 Nov. 1890). The name of another sister was not provided. It could, however, be Theophile Blanari, née Weile (born on 19 July 1880 in Prechlau). Her husband Jacob Blanari (born on 27 Aug. 1880) also came from Berlin, where two of their four children were born. In 1920, Jacob Blanari had registered a trade for manufactured goods under the address of Hütten 123 on the ground floor. This business was taken over by Hermann Hirsch in 1921.

Before her marriage, Jenny Hirsch had worked as an itinerant trader. When her daughter Herta was born on 13 Mar. 1904, she lived in Nuremberg at Hasenhof 5. The father of her child, the "traveler” (traveling salesman) Emanuel Weinberg from Nuremberg, acknowledged the paternity. It is quite possible that Jenny and Hermann Hirsch had met in Berlin, where they got married on 12 Feb. 1908. When Jenny’s then five-year-old daughter Herta was given the surname Hirsch on 19 Oct. 1909, they were still living in Berlin. Their Jewish religious tax (Kultussteuer) file card with the Hamburg German-Israelitic Community was not created until 1925, although they had lived at Fehlandstrasse 21 since 1923. Under the rubric of "children,” a child by the name of Erna was entered as well. Whose daughter Erna Hirsch, born on 31 Jan. 1903 in Munich, was could not be clarified. According to an entry in the death register of the Hamburg records offices, Erna Hirsch, the "daughter of the family” ("Haustochter” [note: in this context, a daughter of legal working age employed as domestic help/nanny]), died on 1 Jan. 1925 in the house at Fehlandstrasse 21. She had fallen ill with pulmonary tuberculosis and was buried on the burial ground of the Community on Ilandkoppel in Ohlsdorf.

Around 1926/1927, Jenny and Hermann Hirsch left Fehlandstrasse and moved to the third-floor apartment at Hütten 123, where Hermann Hirsch already ran a menswear shop on the ground floor.

Jenny’s daughter Herta learned the trade of milliner ("Putzmacherin”) after her school years. With the trade designation of "linen production” ("Wäscheanfertigung”), she set up her own business at Elbstrasse 123 (today Neanderstrasse). When she moved to Berlin to reside at Wilmersdorferstrasse in 1933, her mother Jenny took over the business for a short time. Herta emigrated from Berlin to Palestine on 3 Mar. 1934 via Johannesburg, South Africa.

Her stepfather Hermann Hirsch must have abandoned his business before that, as he had been employed since 1930 as a "substitute,” a deputy to a department or sales manager in the department store of Hermann Tietz. His employment ended in 1935 when the department store passed into "Aryan” hands and was given its present name, Alsterhaus (see Jenny Pincus, www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de). Hermann Hirsch found no other gainful employment in the following two years. The spouses tried to make ends meet by renting out rooms and, after their savings had been used up, they lived on welfare support for a time. From 1937 to 1938, Hermann Hirsch worked as a messenger, and was finally forced to work as an excavator. At the beginning of 1937, the Hirsch couple moved into a smaller and cheaper apartment at Neuer Steinweg 3. Their last residential address in Hamburg was, since Nov. 1940, at what used to be Goethestrasse 20 (today Jüthornstrasse) in Hamburg-Wandsbek. Astrid Louven wrote in her brochure entitled Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Wandsbek that Goethestrasse 20 functioned as a kind of "Jews’ house” ("Judenhaus”). This location also accommodated the pharmacy owner Edgar Heimberg (born on 14 Sept. 1888) and his wife Bertha, née Elias (born on 7 Mar. 1908) (see Handeltje Elias), as well as the musician Arthur Bud (born on 20 Dec. 1884), who were deported together to Lodz on 25 Oct. 1941.

Jenny and Hermann Hirsch received their deportation orders for 8 Nov. 1941 to the ghetto in Minsk, where catastrophic conditions prevailed that they did not survive.

Their apartment furnishings were confiscated to the benefit of the German Reich and at the public auction on 12 Dec. 1941, the day of Hermann Hirsch’s sixty-first birthday, they generated proceeds of 537 RM (reichsmark). Whether the Hirsch couple was still alive at that time remains uncertain.

Daughter Herta returned from Israel on 23 Nov. 1954, seriously ill. She died on 12 Oct. 1955 in the Israelite Hospital in Hamburg.

The Jacob and Theophile Blanari couple was also deported to the Minsk Ghetto on 8 Nov. 1941. Stolpersteine at Weidenstieg 8 commemorate both (see Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Eimsbüttel).

Jenny Hirsch’s siblings Emil and Clara survived.

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

Stand: May 2020
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: 1; 4; StaH 351-11 AfW 3036 (Hirsch, Jenny), StaH 351-11 AfW 5112 (Blanari, Theophile); StaH 351-14 Arbeits- und Sozialfürsorge 1283 (Hirsch, Hermann); StaH 332-5 Standesämter 896 u 2/1925; StaH 352-5 Todesbescheinigung, 1925, Sta 2, 2; StaH 314-15 Abl. 1998 H 989; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinde Nr. 992 e 2 Band 2; Louven/Pietsch: Stolpersteine, S. 66; Lohmeyer: Stolpersteine, S. 101; diverse Hamburger Adressbücher.
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