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Auguste Freudenberg * 1867

Am Weiher 14 (Eimsbüttel, Eimsbüttel)

1942 Theresienstadt
am 12.09.1943 dort gestorben

Auguste Freudenberg, born 2 Apr. 1867 in Lilienthal, deported 15 July 1942 to Theresienstadt, died there 12 Sep. 1943

Am Weiher 14

Auguste Freudenberg was born on 2 April 1867 in Lilienthal near Bremen. She never married. Her parents were Philipp Freudenberg, a painter (died 1879), and Hannchen Freudenberg, née Meyer (died 1870). Auguste Freudenberg had several siblings. The eldest sister, Sophie (*19 Jan. 1851 in Lilienthal, died 24 July 1939 in Hamburg), also never married, and was employed as a housemaid in one or more households in Hamburg. A younger sister, Helene (*8 Sep. 1869 in Lilienthal), also worked as a housemaid until she married the upholsterer Louis Levisohn in Wandsbek in 1895. It is thought that there was a brother named Moses Freudenberg, born 1860 in Lilienthal.

Studies of the history of the Jewish community of Lilienthal, which merged in the 19th century with neighboring communities to form the Ottersberg Synagogue Community, show that it and other Jewish communities in the Weser and Wümme lowlands grew quickly before 1850. It is unknown when the Freudenberg family moved there. In 1871 the Jewish population of Lilienthal numbered 24. By 1873 membership in the Ottersberg Synagogue Community had grown to 74. In the wake of the Reich-wide economic depression after 1877, however, the Ottersberg Synagogue Community experienced an economic downturn. As a result, many young Jews left their families to move to nearby larger cities. By 1925, Lilienthal had no Jewish residents at all. Moses Freudenberg, probably the brother of Auguste, Sophie, and Helene, had opened a shop for manufactured goods in Ottersberg in 1885. But he, like so many others, was unable to keep his business afloat. In 1910 he moved to Bremen, and thus "the last Jewish resident left the area [Ottersberg].” He set up his manufactured goods shop in the workers’ quarter around Woltmershauser Straße in Bremen. He was able to emigrate to England on 21 February 1939. It cannot be determined when Auguste Freudenberg and her sisters left Lilienthal for the Hamburg area. It is possible that Auguste went to Wandsbek with her sisters. She later lived and worked in Altona and was a member of the Jewish Community there. In Altona she lived at Behnstraße 10. In 1935 she moved to Hamburg and joined its Jewish Community.

Her profession is listed as "helper,” which generally meant underpaid household work. In 1935, her church tax records with the German-Israelitic Community (DIG) noted that Auguste Freudenberg (she was 67) had no taxable income and that she was not working.

Auguste Freudenberg’s first address in Hamburg was Im Gehölz 13/II (c/o Wittmaack) – perhaps one of the families for which she was a "helper.” Her last address before she was deported was at the "Jews’ house” at Bundesstraße 43.

A notation in her church tax records that all correspondence for Auguste Freudenberg should be directed to "Frau Levisohn, Heinrich-Barth-Str. 24,” leads to Sophie Freudenberg. She was retired, and like her sister Helene, who had married in Wandsbek, had moved to this borough to the east of Hamburg. She changed her membership from the Wandsbek Jewish Community to the DIG on 19 December 1934. She lived for a time at the above-mentioned address on Heinrich-Barth-Straße with her sister Helene and her husband Louis Levisohn. The family later moved to Brahmsallee 18, then to Bogenstraße 15. For the biographies of the Levisohn family, see Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Wandsbek.

Sophie Freudenberg died on 24 July 1939. Auguste Freudenberg was deported to Theresienstadt on 15 July 1942. She died there on 12 September 1943.

Translator: Amy Lee

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

© Peter Offenborn

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; StAH 351-11 AfW 1212 (Wiedergutmachungsakte Erbengemeinschaft Louis Levisohn); StAH 351-11 AfW 1361 (Wiedergutmachungsakte Erbengemeinschaft Helene Levisohn); Theresienstädter Gedenkbuch, S. 390; Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Wandsbek, S. 115–120; Herbert Obenaus (Hrsg.), Historisches Handbuch der jüdischen Gemeinden in Niedersachsen und Bremen, S. 1238; Jürgen Bohmbach, Die Juden im alten Regierungsbezirk Stade, S. 55 und S. 67; Herbert Schwarzwälder, Juden und Synagogengemeinde in Ottersberg, S. 50–61.