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Henny Andrade (née Katzenstein) * 1875
Stellinger Weg 11 (Eimsbüttel, Eimsbüttel)
HIER WOHNTE
HENNY ANDRADE
GEB. KATZENSTEIN
JG. 1875
DEPORTIERT 1942
THERESIENSTADT
ERMORDET 17.9.1943
Henny Andrade, geb. Katzenstein, geb. am 13.10.1875 in Harburg, deportiert am 19.7.1942 nach Theresienstadt, dort gestorben am 17.9.1943
Stellinger Weg 11
Six days after her birth, the father, Jacob Katzenstein (1834-1895), registered "a child of a female gender who had not yet been given a first name” at the local registry office. Six weeks later, the first name "Henny" was then entered in the register. Since Henny was the eleventh of her parents' twelve children, they probably had other worries than quickly choosing a first name. As Klaus Möller writes about Henny's sisters Toni Neufeld and Selma Wolff (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de), Jacob Katzenstein, as a product dealer,would not have had an easy time feeding the many children. The Katzensteins - since 1858 Jacob was married to Riecke (Friederike), née Freudenthal (1836-1908) - lived together with three other families in a house at Neue Straße 52 in Harburg. There, the stolpersteine remind us of Henny's sisters.
One of the other siblings, Ernst (1872-1956) and his family were able to flee to Brazil. Two brothers, Salomon (born 1862) and Louis (born 1869), died in 1936 and 1938, respectively. A sister – Friede (born 1866), who will be looked at in more detail later - died in November 1941 of a stroke. The youngest, Ida, born 1877, died in 1901. The fate of the other Katzenstein children could not yet be clarified - even for the period before 1933.
We do not know anything about Henny's childhood and youth. On a service card created for her in 1896, her profession is given as "Dstm." (Maid). Until 1898 she worked in various Hamburg households, interrupted by a two-month stay in the Israelite hospital. In the meantime, she again lived several times with her mother at Marktstrasse 19 and Eichholz 51/52. On a second service card, which covers the period from 1898 to 1914, Henny is entered as a worker. This job title was later deleted and replaced by "accountant”, meaning that she must have qualified professionally during this time. From November 1898 to November 1906 she lived continuously with her mother in Eichholz 51/52.
After a short stay with her sister Friede and Friede`s husband Nathan Oppenheim (1869-1921) in Rutschbahn 2, Henny on December 5, 1906 gave birth to a son named Georg, in the apartment of the accountant S. Katzenstein at Sartoriusstraße 9. It was probably her brother Salomon Katzenstein's (1862-1936) apartment. Thirty-one-year-old Henny is entered in the civil registry as an unmarried accountant. The child's father remained unknown, which later led to speculation in the family. One story said that he could have been a Russian Jew who had fled the tsarist pogroms and later emigrated to Argentina. Or maybe he was the boss of the company where Henny worked.
In the following years, Henny took turns living with her mother, and sister and brother-in-law Oppenheim, who accepted Georg as their child. Friede Katzenstein and the dealer Nathan Oppenheim had married in April 1900. According to the family, Georg thought the two were his biological parents until he learned from an accidentally overheard conversation that this was not the case. It is noted in the birth register that he did not officially carry the last name Oppenheim until September 1922. At that point his foster (later) adoptive father, Nathan Oppenheim, had already died of TB, a disease that he contracted as a soldier in the First World War. Friede Oppenheim now had to raise Georg on her own. He - in the middle of puberty - took out on her his shock at not being her biological son. The family said that he became cold and dismissive and made fun of her faith by smoking provocatively in the entrance area of the synagogue. Fortunately, the relationship with his "mother" normalized again in the coming years. We will return to Friede and Georg later.
Henny married the merchant or auctioneer Joseph Andrade, born February 9, 1870 in Hamburg, in May 1914. It was his third marriage. His first wife Zipora, née Andrade (b.1866), a cousin, had died in 1905. His second wife Franziska, née Horwitz (b. 1875), had died in the Israelite hospital in September 1913. Joseph brought two small daughters into the marriage, Paula (1909-1943) and Flora (1911-2005), whose married name later was Neumann. In her memoirs "Erinnern, um zu leben” ("Remember to Live”), Flora writes that Henny and Joseph Andrade met through an advertisement in a weekly Jewish newspaper: "Widower with two young children is looking for a woman who loves children, for marriage”. Flora and Paula loved their stepmother very much, and for a long time they did not know that Henny was not their birth mother.
The small family initially only had a short time together, during the First World War Joseph became a soldier. According to Flora Neumann, Henny sold old furniture left over from his job as an auctioneer while he was away, thus ensuring the survival of herself and the girls. From 1915 to 1920, the profession of "Mrs. H. Andrade" was listed in the Hamburg address books as "Partiewaren” ("batch goods"). We do not know how much contact she had with her son during this time. Joseph Andrade returned from the war a sick man; he is said to have suffered from a severe bladder problem. From 1918, in addition to Henny, he was entered in the address book as a "Taxator” (valuer). He probably evaluated furniture and household items, based on his pre-war activities.
The couple's address had been Stellinger Weg 11 since 1917. It was there that the cigar shop was first listed in 1921, which the Andrades finally opened and Flora Neumann refers to in her memories: "Dock workers bought chewing tobacco, tobacco for their pipes and other tobacco products. Not easy for my mother, she was in the shop all day from 6 a.m., serving customers and looking after us children and my father, who was often in great pain. He was in bed a lot.”
Flora Neumann fondly remembered their Friday evenings together: "We were not pious Jews, but we lived traditionally. My father went to the synagogue with Paula and me if he could. He wore a dark suit and we our pretty Shabbat dresses. We were very happy. In the meantime, my mother prepared the feast. When I think about it, I still get the good smell in my nose today ... [...] My mother really got apple cheeks from cooking and pottering around. She looked wonderful. We kissed her and she asked us: "Did you pray for something good?"
When the Nazis forced Jews to hand over jewelry and valuables made of silver and gold from 1939 onwards, according to Flora, Henny Andrade also had to bring two silver candlesticks, a Hanukkah candlestick, a Passover bowl and a kiddush mug to one of the "points of purchase". These ritual items will have been used by the family on many Friday evenings and religious holidays.
Paula and Flora attended the Jewish Girls` High School in the Carolinenstrasse. Later they did shift work in a factory to support their parents financially because the family was doing worse and worse economically. Flora said she wanted to do more with her life and joined a youth group called J.J.A. (Jüdische Jungarbeiter = Jewish young workers). When Paula Andrade got pregnant unmarried, her parents reacted with a lot of understanding and did not insist on her getting married. Paula nevertheless married her non-Jewish boyfriend Georg Müller and gave birth to her daughter Rita Henny on December 1, 1929. Since the divorce occurred after a few years, Paula was not protected by marriage to an "Aryan" during the Nazi period. She and her daughter were deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto a few days before Henny, and sent on to the Auschwitz extermination camp on January 29, 1943. Neither survived. For Paula and Rita Müller there are stumbling blocks in front of the house at Schlump 28.
Back to Henny Andrade`s son Georg Oppenheim and her sister Friede. The Oppenheim family had been living at Schlüterstraße 79 since 1919. Georg had been attending the Talmud Tora School since April 1913, where he was taught by Mathias Stein (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de), with whose son Joseph he was friends. He often walked in and out of the nearby Stein`s apartment in Rutschbahn 37. After reaching the upper secondary level in 1922, Georg began an apprenticeship in a banking business and then worked in the wholesale food trade. In October 1926 he earned 100 Reichsmarks (RM) a month as a commercial employee, but was paid irregularly by his employer and – moreover - in instalments. In January 1927, he lost his job and became unemployed.
Friede Oppenheim had to apply for welfare support for the first time in October 1926. The file shows that she had an accident in the winter of 1925/26 and since then because of her mutilated hand was only able to work to a limited extent. What activity she previously performed is not known. She then rented out three rooms of the 4 1/2 room apartment. This allowed her to pay her own rent, but made so little "profit" that she could not make a living from it. The financial aid granted to her was only a few Reichsmarks a week, and she even had to pawn part of her bed linen, underwear and shoes at times. In September 1927 she was awarded a one-time support of 10 RM to redeem the most important pieces. "Mrs. O. must try to get the ring and spectacles [!] as well as tablecloths back in another way," it says in her welfare file. Until the end of her life, Friede had to fight for her financial survival. Georg supported her as much as possible.
After Georg's unemployment benefit expired, he also applied for welfare support. Since his search for a job was unsuccessful he finally prepared for the Abitur examination, which he passed in September 1928 as an external student at the "Thaer-Oberrealschule vor dem Holstentor”, the first science and modern language school in Hamburg without Latin and Greek. He then studied law with the help of scholarships from the "Association of the Israelite Community" and the university authority at the University in Hamburg. According to the welfare file, he worked for "Andrade Company" for five weeks in July 1929, probably during the semester break, an indication that he was in contact with his biological mother and her family. Henny's brother-in-law Ivan Andrade ran a shop for pipes and tobacco products at Bellealliancestrasse 66. After six semesters of studying, Georg passed the first legal examination in December 1931 and began a legal clerkship at the Hamburg district court on January 1, 1932.
He was already politically active during his studies. It will also be due to the poverty in which Friede and he had to live that he joined the "sozialistische Studentenschaft ("socialist student body") and later the SPD (Social Democratic Party). In Ursula Wamser`s and Wilfried Weinke`s book "Ehemals in Hamburg zu Hause: Jüdisches Leben am Grindel” ("Formerly at home in Hamburg: Jewish Life on the Grindel”) Georg is portrayed in the chapter on "Menschen jüdischer Herkunft im Widerstand” ("People of Jewish Origin in Resistance"). They wrote that he "would soon be in critical contradiction to their [= the SPD`s] policies" and turned to the KPD (Communist Party of Germany). However, he did not join this party, "because [of] the Senate’s decision for civil servants prohibiting membership in the KPD."
After the "Altona Bloody Sunday" in July 1932, Georg Oppenheim actively participated as a legal expert in the investigation committee, which was supposed to clarify how these incidents occurred. In the events 18 people were killed, four alleged perpetrators were later sentenced to death by the Nazis and executed.
Henny Andrade's stepdaughter Flora had also politicized herself in the meantime. In the workers' youth movement she got to know and love the electrician Rudi Neumann (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de Sophie and Moritz Neumann for more on Rudi`s family). The two married in September 1931 in the Bornplatz synagogue.
In late 1932 or early 1933, Henny and Joseph Andrade moved from Stellinger Weg to Schlachterstraße 47. Poor Jewish families could live here cheaply in the Lazarus-Gumpel-Stift. Joseph died there on March 15, 1933. It must have been a terrible year for Henny: The Nazis seized power, she lost her husband, and in summer both her son and her son-in-law were arrested for political reasons.
The KPD had already expected a ban by the end of 1932 and was preparing for illegality. Rudi Neumann and Georg Oppenheim were jointly active in the Sternschanze group, where Georg as "agitprop” leader gave training lectures and composed documents. The family says that after Georg's arrest, for fear of a house search, Friede threw the typewriter, which he had laboriously paid off in instalments, into a canal. Flora Neumann reported to Georg's granddaughter in 1999 that the group also had a pistol. She said that the members had not only dealt with "big politics", but also went on hikes and picnics together. Issues such as contraception and women's rights had been discussed, Georg had been an inspiring teacher. It is unclear whether she was referring to Georg's time as agitprop leader, because according to the verdict of the Hanseatisches Oberlandesgericht (Hanseatic Higher Regional Court), he only held this function from the beginning of June 1933 until his arrest on July 18, 1933. But he probably got involved earlier, possibly in the youth centre at Johnsallee 54. Various Jewish youth associations met there, and Flora took part in their events. Oddly enough, Flora does not mention her stepbrother and her husband's comrade-in-arms in her memoirs even though they later had contact again. In the volume "Ehemals in Hamburg zu Hause: Jüdisches Leben am Grindel” ("Formerly at home in Hamburg: Jewish Life on the Grindel”, Wamser/Weinke 1991), a photo taken around 1960 shows the two together.
In April 1933, as a Jew, Georg had already had his training allowance cancelled, and in June he was dismissed from public service for the same reason. After his arrest, "Schutzhaft” ("protective custody") in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp, and remanding-custody, he had to serve a two-year heavy prison sentence. In November 1934, the Hanseatisches Oberlandesgericht had found him guilty of treason. In the end of 1936, a few months after his release, Georg fled to the Netherlands, where Friede once was able to visit him. Henny probably saw him for the last time before he left.
From Amsterdam Georg Oppenheim went to Prague in July 1937 , where he worked for the Jewish aid organization HICEM who advised refugees and helped them to emigrate. As the family knows, he also worked for the KPD again and produced leaflets that were then smuggled into Germany.
After the German annexation of Czechoslovakia, Georg was on the run for several weeks and finally managed to escape to England via Poland. In London he met Eva Stein (born 1919), the daughter of his former teacher and sister of his friend Joseph Stein. The two fell in love and married in May 1940. A few days later, they were separately interned as "enemy aliens” on the Isle of Man. In early 1942 Eva received a last message from her parents via the Red Cross, that is how they learned of Friede's death. Their daughter Ruth was born in April of the same year, followed by the twins Walter and Charles in 1946. Henny Andrade never got to know her grandchildren.
After the war and post-war period, Georg's life carried on in a less dramatic way. He died in London in 1988 at the age of 81. His wife Eva followed him in 1992. She was 72 years old.
Back to Hamburg. Henny's son-in-law Rudi Neumann also had to serve a prison sentence. When Flora was pregnant in 1935, she stayed with Henny a lot and lived with her shortly before giving birth. After her son was born the following happened: "I often picked up my mother for a walk. Then we saw that my mother's neighbours admired Berni and said to my mother: "Mrs. Andrade, your grandson looks very, very similar to you." Yes, people imagine things because he couldn't look like my mother at all. I loved my mother very much and I believe that I have become very similar to her through her love that she gave to Paula and me. ”
With these words, Flora made a touching memorial to her stepmother.
In July 1942, Henny Andrade together with her sister Selma Wolff received the deportation order to Theresienstadt, where she perished in September 1943.
Stand: June 2021
© Sabine Brunotte
Quellen: 1, 5; StaH 332-5_12854; StaH 741-4 Fotoarchiv K 6354; StaH 332-5_ 2943; StaH 332-5_ 840; StaH 332-5_690; StaH 332-5_8702; StaH 332-5_1008; StaH 332-5_5260; StaH 351-14_1645, StaH 351-14_1646; beglaubigte Abschrift vom 12.6.2015 aus dem Geburtenregister (10. Dezember 1906, Nr. 2309) Standesamt 20 Hamburg, jetzt Hamburg-Eimsbüttel; StaH 241-2_A 1297; StaH 213-13_26222; Hamburger Adressbücher 1915-1923, 1933 online http://agora.sub.uni-hamburg.de/subhh-adress/digbib/start, Zugriff 12.5.2017; http://www.holocaust-chronologie.de/chronologie/1939/februar.html, Zugriff 13.5.2020; Flora Neumann, Erinnern, um zu leben, Hamburg 2006; S. 12ff, S. 21, S. 23, S. 24, S. 27 S. 30; Wally Oppenheim, The Oppenheim And Stein Families, A Short Family History, April 2016; Ursula Wamser/Wilfried Weinke (Hrsg.) Ehemals in Hamburg zu Hause: Jüdisches Leben am Grindel, Hamburg 1991, S. 167 ff; Gespräch mit Georg Oppenheims Enkelin Natasha Walter am 13. März 2020 in Hamburg;
https://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft Word-6368.pdf zu HICEM, Zugriff 17.5.2020.
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