Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Clara und Hermann Gottlieb mit den Kindern Ellen und Herbert
Fotograf/in: Privatbesitz

Clara Gottlieb (née Horneburg) * 1879

Landwehr 29 (Wandsbek, Eilbek)

HIER WOHNTE
CLARA GOTTLIEB
GEB. HORNEBURG
JG. 1879
DEPORTIERT 1941
ERMORDET IN
MINSK

further stumbling stones in Landwehr 29:
Hermann Gottlieb

Clara Gottlieb, née Horneburg, born on 19 Feb. 1879 in Kiel, deported on 8 Nov. 1941 to Minsk
Hermann Gottlieb, born on 9 Nov. 1881 in Hamburg, deported on 8 Nov. 1941 to Minsk

Landwehr 29

Hermann Gottlieb, 32 years old at the beginning of the First World War and father of a family, was deployed as a medical orderly on the eastern front. When his mother died in Oct. 1917, he was just staying in Hamburg, and he gave notice of her death to the records office.

His mother, Sara Gottlieb, had been divorced for a long time, her husband having traveled to Copenhagen and gone missing since then. She was born as Sara Berges in Moisling near Lübeck on 6 Jan. 1852. Sara Berges learned the trade of tailor and moved to Hamburg. There she was married to the merchant Martin Gottlieb on 24 July 1877. Martin Gottlieb was certainly born in Hamburg – on 23 Jan. 1851 – but lived in Bremen at the time. His father Lazarus Gottlieb had already died, so that his brother Jacob, seven years his senior, represented the family as a witness to the marriage. Sara Berges’ parents were still alive and lived in Lübeck, but apparently, they did not attend the wedding. Her family was not represented by any close relatives at the wedding ceremony.

Sara and Martin Gottlieb lived on Peterstrasse in Hamburg-Neustadt in the neighborhood of Martin’s mother Georgine, née Hirsch, who came from Gartow (today: District of Lüchow-Dannenberg). The first of their four children born was son Louis on 20 Apr. 1878. He was followed by daughter Auguste on 13 June 1879 and son Hermann on 9 Nov. 1881. Six years afterward, latecomer Henriette joined the family. Martin Gottlieb’s mother died in 1892 at the age of 72. The oldest son Louis only reached the age of 21 and died on 12 Nov. 1899. Since her separation and subsequent divorce from husband Martin, Sara Gottlieb probably worked as a tailor to earn a livelihood for herself and particularly for the youngest daughter Henriette. Her son Hermann did a commercial apprenticeship and then contributed his share to the family income.

On his twenty-seventh birthday, on 9 Nov. 1908, Hermann Gottlieb got married to Selma Clara Horneburg, born on 19 Feb. 1879 in Kiel.

Clara Gottlieb’s originally Jewish father was a native of Altona, where he was born and baptized as Jesaias Horneburg on 12 Mar. 1841; later, he went by the first name of Jean. He was a bookbinder by trade. Clara Gottlieb’s mother, Johanna, née Fliess, was also born in 1841, more precisely on 4 Dec. in Marienwalde (East Prussia). She remained affiliated with the Jewish faith. When Clara was eight years old, her sister Friederike was born, and after the family’s move to Hamburg, brother Julius followed in 1889. Unlike his siblings, Julius Horneburg subsequently – apparently in connection with marrying a non-Jewish woman – became a member of the Lutheran Church, in which son Herbert was baptized as well.

When Clara Gottlieb’s father, Jean Horneburg, died on 14 July 1897, none of the children had come of age yet. His widow Johanna was a tailor and probably raised the children on her own. Clara became a kindergarten teacher. At the time of her wedding, she lived at Kleine Pulverteich 23 in St. Georg and Hermann Gottlieb, who worked as a dispatch clerk, at Kleiner Schäferkamp 34 in Eimsbüttel. Her uncle Nathan Berges represented the Gottlieb family as a witness to the marriage and her brother-in-law Arthur Eckler, the husband of Clara’s sister Friederike, the Horneburg family.

Hermann and Clara Gottlieb initially took up residence at Goebenstrasse 15 in Eimsbüttel, where their two children Herbert and Ellen were born in 1910 and 1911. During Hermann Gottlieb’s deployment in World War I, his mother-in-law Johanna Horneburg passed away on 27 Feb. 1917 and in October of that same year his mother Sara Gottlieb.

When Hermann Gottlieb returned to Hamburg after the end of the First World War, both children were already attending school. On 28 Jan. 1919, Clara Gottlieb registered a business as the "owner of a commercial enterprise for movables,” in which her husband worked as well. It was a store selling rubber raincoats, initially located at Annenstrasse 31 in St. Pauli, then at Schäferkampsallee 44 in Eimsbüttel. In both cases, the residential and business addresses were identical. Due to the world economic crisis, sales dropped so substantially that Clara and Hermann Gottlieb gave up the business.

In 1921, Hermann Gottlieb joined the Hamburg German-Israelitic Community, without becoming a member of one of the religious societies. Son Herbert attended the Oberrealschule [a secondary school without Latin] on Bogenstrasse up to the second last grade (Unterprima) and completed a commercial apprenticeship working for the Koester commercial firm at Grosser Burstah.

In 1930, the Gottlieb family moved to Stellingen, which had been incorporated into Altona in 1927, and resided there as subtenants at Rönkampstrasse 6 (with Grönwold) until the end of Oct. 1932, and this also entailed changing to the Jewish Community in Altona. Hermann Gottlieb worked as a commercial clerk but his income was very modest as compared to what he had earned before the world economic crisis. Herbert contributed to the family income, first as an apprentice working for his training company, which continued to employ him initially, though subsequently dismissing him, apparently for "racial reasons,” on 31 May 1933. He found a new job with a Jewish company, Kahn & Co. Daughter Ellen Gottlieb became an office worker, earning a taxable income for the first time in 1932. She married Alfred Fliess, born on 23 Aug. 1893 in Marienwalde, who was 18 years her senior and a relative on the grandmother’s side, and lived with him in Berlin. The marriage produced daughter Recha.

At the end of the world economic crisis, Hermann, Clara, and Herbert Gottlieb returned from Altona to Hamburg and moved into an apartment at Beim Strohhause 44 in St. Georg, where, for a short time, another tenant was also registered, Fanny Haubschein, born on 20 Mar. 1913 in Berlin. She and Herbert Gottlieb had met during practical agricultural training in Aurich/East Friesland, where they prepared for their emigration to Palestine. On 13 Apr. 1935, they got married in Hamburg, emigrating in Aug. 1935, after a short stay in Berlin, to Palestine, where they joined the Givat Brenner kibbutz.

The once large circle of relatives had diminished due to deaths, relocations, and emigration. Hermann Gottlieb’s sister Auguste had moved to Vienna, his sister Henriette to join her husband Adolf Margulis in Berlin. His cousin Betty Berges and nephew Herbert Horneburg were accommodated in the Langenhorn "sanatorium and nursing home” ("Heil- und Pflegeanstalt” Langenhorn).

In 1937, Clara and Hermann Gottlieb gave up their apartment on Beim Strohhause and moved to Landwehr 29 in Eilbek. After a break in his time of gainful employment, Hermann Gottlieb worked for the Rappolt & Söhne Company as a customer correspondent in the years 1939 and early 1940. In the following years, they lived on their now small incomes, but they did meet their obligation to pay dues to the Jewish Community on a regular basis.

In 1939, the time of direct experiences of destruction began for them. Their niece Irma Eckler, born in 1913, working as a nanny or governess ("Kinderfräulein”), had two daughters from her common-law relationship with August Landmesser. On 14 July 1939, she was arrested for this "racial defilement” ("Rassenschande”) and committed to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, where she died in Apr. 1942. There is no record concerning the circumstances of her arrest.

In Sept. 1940, Betty Berges got caught in the T4 "euthanasia” operation. Together with the male and female Jewish patients from other institutions concentrated there for transfer, she was transported on 23 Sept. 1940 from the Langenhorn state institution to the euthanasia killing center in Brandenburg, where she was gassed. Herbert Horneburg escaped getting murdered and survived the Nazi period, as did his father Julius.

As the deportations of Hamburg Jews to the east began in the fall of 1941, the Gestapo assigned Hermann and Clara Gottlieb to the second transport, departing from Hamburg to Minsk on 8 Nov. 1941. Their apartment was on a list prepared by the Gestapo of apartments becoming vacant, including details regarding the owners and the number of rooms. One day before his sixtieth birthday, Hermann Gottlieb left Hamburg, having to hand over the fully furnished apartment to the Gestapo.

On 11 July 1942, Hermann’s sister Henriette, together with her husband Adolf Margulis, was deported from Berlin on the transport to Auschwitz coming from Bielefeld and Hamburg. Arthur Eckler took his own life on 27 Mar. 1943. Also from Berlin as a starting point, Ellen, Recha, and Alfred Fliess were deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto on 17 Mar. 1943. From there, they were transported further to Auschwitz, Alfred Fliess on 28 Sept., Ellen and Recha Fliess on 4 Oct. 1944. There are no traces of life at all of any of them.

Fanny and Herbert Gottlieb, now going by the name of Moshe Givoni, started a family of their own in the Givat Brenner kibbutz. Their four children still live there to this date – 2012.

Status as of Feb. 2014

Translator: Erwin Fink

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 9; StaH 314-15 OFP Oberfinanzpräsident 26 (Wohnungspflegeamt); 314-15 OFP Oberfinanzpräsident Abl. 1998, G 636; 332-5 Standesämter 2009-5314/1881, 2576-951/1879, 8661-835/1908; 332-8 Meldewesen K 6077, 6144, 6284; 351-11, 35224; 376-3, K 3840; Mitteilungen von Chana Givoni, E-Mail am 9.5.1912; Stadtarchiv Kiel, Geburtsregister; Liste des Lübecker Ordnungsamtes über den "Verbleib der Juden aus Lübeck", 1963, freundliche Mitteilung von Kugler-Weiemann, Lübeck, E-Mail vom 23.4.2012.
Zur Nummerierung häufig genutzter Quellen siehe Link "Recherche und Quellen".