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Leopold Rosenthal * 1892

Lerchenstraße 104 (Altona, Sternschanze)

HIER WOHNTE
LEOPOLD ROSENTHAL
JG. 1892
DEPORTIERT 1941
LODZ / LITZMANNSTADT
ERMORDET

further stumbling stones in Lerchenstraße 104:
Elsa Erika Rosenthal, Lina Rosenthal, Rosa Rosenthal

Elsa Erika (Else) Rosenthal, born 30.3.1896 in Altona, deported to Lodz on 25.10.1941, murdered on 10.5.1942 in Kulmhof (Chelmno)
Leopold Rosenthal, born 21.7.1891 (1892) in Altona, imprisoned until December 1938 in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, deported to Lodz on 25.10.1941, murdered on 10.5.1942 in Kulmhof (Chelmno)
Lina Rosenthal, born 27.8.1880 in Altona, deported on 25.10.1941 to Lodz, murdered on 10.5.1942 in Kulmhof (Chelmno)
Rosa Rosenthal, born 5.3.1887 in Altona, deported on 25.10.1941 to Lodz, murdered on 10.5.1942 in Kulmhof (Chelmno)

Lerchenstraße 104 (Nachtigallenstraße 13)

Jakob Moses and Sophie Rosenthal, née von Halle, had at least six children: Lina, Alfred, born on October 10, 1882, Rosa, Paul, born on May 26, 1889, Leopold and Elsa. Sophie Rosenthal was widowed by 1913 at the latest. She lived on the first floor of Nachtigallenstraße 13, where Siegfried Rosenthal, a large butcher who died in 1931, also had his home or business. It is not known how he was related to the Rosenthal siblings.

Alfred was registered in the 1913 address book for this address with the occupation Horse Commission. The horse broker survived National Socialism as the sole heir of his siblings. His wife Dora belonged to the Lutheran Church. Alfred later no longer lived with the siblings Lina, Rosa, Leopold and Elsa in Nachtigallenstraße. He operated his business in the former Eckernförderstraße, today's Simon-von-Utrecht-Straße.

Leopold was a merchant and remained single, as did his three sisters. From 1923 at the latest, he was taxed by the Jewish Community. After the Pogrom Night, the Gestapo took him into "protective custody" on November 11, 1938, and delivered him to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. At the end of December of the same year, he was released together with 110 other male Jews - according to the "List of Jewish Releases of 23.12.38 ". A note on the tax car of the Jewish community (Kultussteuerkarte) says that he was in "voluntary labor service" from May 11, 1939. At times he drew support from welfare.

At the end of October 1939, the siblings moved from Nachtigallenstraße 13 to Kleine Papagoyenstraße 1 in Altona. The Altona synagogue stood on this street, which no longer exists today. Rosenthals lived in a Jewish residential home and later "Judenhaus." In July 1940, the brother Paul and his wife Elisabeth Ruth, who had converted to Judaism, moved from the apartment they shared on Papagoyenstraße to Berlin. In that year, neither Elsa nor Lina had any income, and the remarks on the Kultussteuerkarteien of both are identical: "lives in the siblings' household." For all other years there are no entries in the index cards of either woman. Rosa was a seamstress by trade. She only earned income in the 1933/34 assessment period, for which she was obligated to make a small payment to the Jewish Community. The latter also noted on her file card a business address at Wilhelminenstraße 67 - today Hein-Hoyer-Straße. According to the information obtained from the transport lists of the Hamburg Gestapo, Leopold was employed as a garden worker before the deportation.

From Kleine Papagoyenstraße "the entire household is said to have been taken away by the Gestapo 14 days after the evacuation," according to the brother Alfred in the application for restitution. The proceeds of the auction and the confiscation of other property brought in just under RM 1,000 to the Oberfinanzkasse Hamburg.

After arriving in the Lodz ghetto, Leopold worked as a factory worker, Rosa in the linen industry as a seamstress. Else was listed as a worker - in which industry is not documented. The siblings were also housed together in the ghetto. They lived at Siegfriedstraße 2, apartment 18.

Else, Lina, Rosa and Leopold were "resettled" on May 10, 1942. What does this mean? In an action lasting from May 4 to May 15, the Nazis suffocated more than 10,000 of the ghetto residents who had arrived in Lodz in the fall of 1941 in gas vans at the Kulmhof/Chelmno extermination camp. The memorial book of the Federal Archives states that Lina Rosenthal died in the Lodz ghetto on January 12, 1945. By this time, the ghetto had already been cleared.

Historians Gottwaldt and Schulle wrote about the whereabouts of the ghetto inhabitants: "The last German Jews living and working in Litzmannstadt were taken to Auschwitz when this ghetto was evacuated in August 1944. There they were subjected to 'selection' and some were still distributed to other sites of forced labor in subcamps of the concentration camp system." It is possible that Lina managed to escape extermination in Chelmno. It then remains open where she lived until January 1945.

Translation by Beate Meyer
Stand: January 2022
© Christiane Jungblut

Quellen: 1; 2; 4; 5; 8; ITS/ARCH/Ghetto Litzmannstadt, Ordner 9, Seite 1061; ITS/ARCH/Konzentrationslager Sachsenhausen, Ordner 105, Seite 190f.; ITS/ARCHTransportliste Gestapo Hamburg, Ordner 17a, Seite 22; StaH 213-8 Staatsanwaltschaft Oberlandesgericht - Verwaltung, Abl. 2, 451 a E 1, 1 c; StaH 314-15 OFP, Abl. 1998/1, J 1/923/925/926/929; StaH 332-8 Meldewesen A51/1, K 2463, K 2514; StaH 522-1 Jüd. Gemeinden, 992 e 1 Band 1; Feuchert/Leibfried/Riecke (Hrsg.), Chronik, 1942, 2007; S. 7; Gottwaldt/Schulle, "Judendeportationen", 2005, S. 67.
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