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Erna Perls (née Levy) * 1882

Lüneburger Straße 46 (Harburg, Harburg)

HIER WOHNTE
ERNA PERLS
GEB. LEVY
JG. 1882
DEPORTIERT 1942
THERESIENSTADT
1944 AUSCHWITZ
ERMORDET

Erna Perls, née Levy, born on 4 June 1882 in Harburg, deported from Berlin to Theresienstadt on 10 Sept. 1942, deported further on 9 Oct. 1944 to Auschwitz

Lüneburger Strasse 46 (formerly Lüneburger Strasse 21)

At the time when Erna Levy was born as the daughter of the Jewish merchant and banker David Levy (10 Dec. 1847 to 4 Jan. 1919) and his wife Laura (Louisa), née Friede, (4 Oct. 1854 to 1 Feb. 1927) shortly after the opening of the railroad line from Harburg to Cuxhaven, a rapid phase of industrialization began in Harburg, connected with fast population growth. Within 20 years (1880–1900), the number of inhabitants tripled from approx. 15,000 to approx. 45,000. Erna Levy’s parents, too, had migrated from Rehburg and Minden, joining the Jewish Community in Harburg, which numbered approx. 250 members at the time and met for their religious services in the synagogue at the intersection of Eissendorfer Strasse and Knoopstrasse (back then Albersstrasse). Even in those days, the cemetery of this religious community was already located on the Schwarzenberg, where her parents would be buried later as well.

In 1903, Erna Levy, then aged 21, married Benno Perls (born on 9 Dec. 1866) who came from a Jewish family whose home was in the city of Tarnow in Galicia. The young couple later settled in Berlin. We know just as little about the life they shared in the metropolis on the Spree River as we do about the childhood of the two spouses. The dramatic political changes and the increasing existential threat to the Jewish population after 1933 were omnipresent. It is no longer possible today to clarify how seriously Benno and Erna Perls took this danger and how they reacted to it. The proclamation of the definitive ban on emigration for German Jews in Oct. 1941 put an abrupt end to all considerations and hopes of escaping the imminent disaster at the last moment.

On 10 Sept. 1942, Benno and Erna Perls were deported from Berlin to the Theresienstadt Ghetto. There, Benno Perls closed his eyes forever not even four weeks later, on 6 Oct. 1942, at the age of 75.

In the hopelessly overcrowded quarters of this camp, the occupants endured not only constant hunger and utterly inadequate medical care but also permanent fear of the endless transports to the east. On 9 Oct. 1944 – four weeks before the destruction of the gas chambers began – Erna Perls was sent from the ghetto on the Eger (Ohre) River to Auschwitz. She did not survive this hell.

On 18 Jan. 1954, Erna Perls was declared dead by the Berlin-Charlottenburg District Court (Amtsgericht) as of 31 Dec. 1945.


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

Stand: April 2018
© Klaus Möller

Quellen: Hamburger jüdische Opfer des Nationalsozialismus. Gedenkbuch, Jürgen Sielemann, Paul Flamme (Hrsg.), Hamburg 1995; Gedenkbuch. Opfer der Verfolgung der Juden unter der nationalsozialistischen Gewaltherrschaft in Deutschland 1933–1945, Bundesarchiv (Hrsg.), Koblenz 2006; Yad Vashem. The Central Database of Shoa Victims´ Names: www.yadvashem.org; Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg Staatsarchiv, 332-5. 12867-295 Standesämter; www.statistik-des-holocaust.de/AT61_1; Harburger Opfer des Nationalsozialismus, Bezirksamt Harburg (Hrsg.), Hamburg-Harburg 2002; Alfred Gottwald, Diana Schulle, Die `Judendeportationen´ aus dem Deut-schen Reich 1941–1945, Wiesbaden 2005; Eberhard Kändler, Gil Hüttenmeister, Der Jüdische Friedhof Harburg, Nr. 171, Hamburg 2004; Matthias Heyl, `Vielleicht steht die Synagoge noch!´ – Jüdisches Leben in Harburg 1933–1945, Norderstedt 2009; Danuta Czech, Kalendarium der Ereignisse im Konzentrationslager Auschwitz-Birkenau 1939–1945, Reinbek 1989.