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Lea Lydia Friedmann * 1930

Wohlers Allee 62 (Altona, Altona-Altstadt)

HIER WOHNTE
LEA LYDIA
FRIEDMANN
JG. 1930
"POLENAKTION" 1938
BENTSCHEN / ZBASZYN
ERMORDET IM
BESETZTEN POLEN

further stumbling stones in Wohlers Allee 62:
Majer Martin Friedmann, Anna Friedmann, Taube Toni Friedmann, Chaja Susi Friedmann, Zipora Rahel Friedmann

Adolf Uscher Friedmann, born on 18.11.1907 in Liesicz (Lysiecz) near Czestochowa
Bertha (Brandla) Friedmann, née Lundner, born on 15.3.1903
Hanna Toni Friedmann, born on 31.7.1928 in Altona
Bertha Ruth Friedmann, born on 15.4.1930 in Altona
Siegbert Friedmann, born 4.11.1931 in Altona
Golda Freide Friedmann, born on 21.8.1933 in Altona
Rebecka (Mirjam) Friedmann, born on 23.11.1934 in Altona
all deported on 28.10.1938 to Zbaszyn/Bentschen, Poland, and murdered in occupied Poland

Wohlers Allee 38, Altona-Altstadt

Martin (Meir Marcus Majer) Friedmann, born on 28.2.1905 in Solotwina, Galicia
Anna Friedmann, née Weissmann, born on 28.5.1904 in Wybranowka, Galicia
Taube Toni (Tilly) Friedmann, born on 9.5.1927 in Altona
Susi (Sara Chaja) Friedmann, born on 20.2.1929 in Altona
Lea (Lydia) Friedmann, born on 25.9.1930 in Altona
Rahel (Zipora) Friedmann, born on 8.2.1935 in Altona
all deported on 28.10.1938 to Zbaszyn/Bentschen, Poland, and murdered in occupied Poland

Wohlers Allee 62, Altona-Altstadt

The Friedmann family immigrated from the former Austro-Hungarian Empire to the then Prussian town Altona in 1909. It currently consisted of Salomon Friedmann, born August 21, 1876 in Bohorodzany in Austrian Galicia, his wife Golde Freide (Frieda), née Tyger (Tiger), born February 4, 1881 in Solotwina, a small town in the then Kingdom of Hungary, and sons Meir Marcus (also Martin, Majer), born February 28, 1905 in Solotwina, located 100 km northwest of Lviv (Lemberg), and Adolf Uscher Friedmann, born November 18, 1907 in the village of Liesicz (Lysiecz), which was located 14 km from Czestochowa in southern Poland (Congress Poland or Russian Poland).
Salomon Friedmann and Golde Freide Tyger had married in 1905. At the time of his immigration to Altona, Salomon Friedmann was an Austrian citizen. In the later restitution proceedings it was claimed that Salomon Friedmann had automatically become a Polish citizen after the First World War. In the 1930 legitimation card, however, it says "Staatsangehörigkeit Osterreich." This was explained by the fact that Salomon Friedmann had been listed as an Austrian citizen even after 1918 and had never bothered to correct his nationality. On April 17, 1928, he received a foreigner's passport from the Polish consulate, which stated in translation, "This passport is valid for travel to Poland and abroad." The legitimation document was renewed annually until October 1934. Upon marriage, Golde Freide Tyger received her husband's citizenship.

Salomon Friedmann first worked as a traveling salesman (agent). He then established a white goods store in Altona (Weisswaren: earlier term for lingerie/underwear) and a trade in used sacks, which he sold against installment payments. In the 1914 address book, Salomon Friedmann was listed at Lerchenstraße 65, Terrace D. After several changes of residence, including to Adolphstrasse 158 (now Bernstorffstraße), he gave his residence as Adolphstraße 95 from 1920.

In the 1929 edition of the Altona Address Book, Salomon Friedmann was listed as the owner of the apartment building at Allee 254 (today Max-Brauer-Allee). On the first floor of the apartment building, the Friedmann family occupied a spacious four-room apartment with adjoining rooms, in which one room was used as a store. The daughter Bertha (Brane) later reported that business had been so profitable that Salomon Friedmann had been able to buy the building at Allee 254.

The family of four, which had grown during the move to Altona, expanded in the following years: Toni Taube was born on April 18, 1911, Bertha (Brane) on June 13, 1913, Oskar (Osias Jehoshua) on September 16, 1918, and Josef Samuel on February 26, 1921. When they became of school age, the children attended the Israelite Community School at Grüne Straße 5 (today Kirchenstraße) and subsequently the Grohne'sche and Frick'sche Commercial Schools in Hamburg, respectively.

The Friedmann family suffered a heavy blow when Golde Freide Friedmann died on April 12, 1932, at the age of 51. The youngest son, Josef Samuel, was only eleven years old at the time.

After the transfer of power to the National Socialists, Salomon Friedmann, as a pious Jew with a full beard, temple curls and a long caftan, had been attacked and mistreated in the streets. He was forced to give up his business as a result of the boycotts and discrimination emanating from the Nazi government and wanted to leave Germany. But he did not succeed in collecting his very significant outstanding debts, which ran into the tens of thousands of Reichsmarks, because the debtors now often refused to pay. It is possible that he no longer felt safe in his home at Allee 254. Until he fled Germany, he lived with his son Martin at Wohlersallee 62 (Wohlers Allee).

Salomon Friedmann and his sons Oskar (Osias Jehoshua) and Josef Samuel left Germany on November 4, 1934, reaching Palestine on November 12. The sale of the house at 254 Allee did not take place until 1935. The sale sum was confiscated except for a small remainder, which was needed to pay for the passage.

In Palestine, Salomon Friedmann, who was now permanently ill, lived with his daughter Toni Taube, who had also left Germany. He died on April 3, 1940.

Martin Friedmann family
Salomon Friedmann's eldest son Martin (Meir Marcus), whose first name is given as "Majer" in the marriage certificate, first worked in his father's business. In the second half of the 1920s, he went into business for himself and operated a white goods and wardrobe store in his apartment. He had been married since September 18, 1925 to Anna Weissmann, born May 28, 1904 in Wybranowka near Lemberg. At the time of the marriage, Martin Friedmann lived at Jägerstraße 13 in St. Pauli (today Wohlwillstraße), Anna Weissmann with her brother Oskar Weissmann in Altona at Sedanstraße 29 (today Duschweg).

On May 9, 1927, the couple had their first daughter, Toni (Taube, Tilly), born on May 9, 1927, followed by Susi Chana Chaja, born on February 20, 1929, Lea Lydia, born on September 25, 1930, and Zipora Rahel, born on February 8, 1935.

Then married, Martin and Anna Friedmann first lived on the street Am Schulterblatt. In June 1928, they rented an apartment at Wohlersallee 62. The building belonged to the East Jewish association Ahavat Torah (Israelitisches Bethaus e.V.), which had established a small Orthodox synagogue there in 1934. The apartment consisted of two rooms with their adjoining rooms. In addition, two large floor rooms were available, in which Martin Friedmann had set up his store. The clientele consisted of employees and civil servants from Altona, Ottensen, Bahrenfeld, Groß Flottbek and Klein Flottbek. In the 1929 address book, it is recorded that Martin Friedmann was not only a merchant, but also a painter.
Martin Friedmann's business was also severely affected by discrimination and boycotts from 1933 onwards. However, to his brother Oskar, who had left Germany in 1934 and emigrated to Palestine, Martin Friedmann reported as late as 1938 that he had been able to maintain his business. For this reason he had not left Germany.

Family Adolf Uscher Friedmann
Adolf Uscher Friedmann, Salomon Friedmann's second son, attended the Israelite Community School at Grünestraße 5 in Altona for eight years and then the Grohne'sche Commercial School in Hamburg. He then worked for a chemical company in Hamburg. Around 1925 he became self-employed, setting up a machine knitting factory in his parents' apartment at 95 I at Adolfstraße and selling the products to retailers. In addition, he purchased ready-made garments from wholesalers and sold them to customers on installment.

In September 1927, he moved to Kleine Papagoyenstraße 3, continuing to operate his business from his parents' apartment at 95 Adolphstraße.

Adolf Uscher Friedmann and Bertha (Brandla), née Lundner, born March 15, 1903 in Chrzanow, Galicia, were married on April 12, 1927, and they had their first child, Hanna Toni, on July 31, 1928. Bertha Ruth followed on April 15, 1930.

The business activities from production and trade must have led to considerable earnings, because Adolf Uscher Friedmann was able to buy the apartment building Wohlersallee 38 with 14 apartments for about 60,000 RM in 1929. In March 1931, the family moved into a three-room apartment on the first floor. Three more children were born here: Siegbert on November 4, 1931, Golda Freide on August 21, 1933, and Rebecka (Mirjam) on November 23, 1934.

Adolf Uscher Friedmann was considered a reputable, decent and very well-off merchant and was known for the fact that one would never come to him in vain with one's concerns. He donated generously to Jewish causes.

We do not know the details of Adolf Uscher Friedmann's life after the transfer of power to Adolf Hitler. This family will also have suffered from the boycotts, harassment and exclusions. In 1937, he is said to have written to his relatives in Palestine that it was not worth his while to come there because he did not want to sell off his business for a minimal price.

On October 3, 1938, Adolf Uscher Friedmann sold the property Wohlersallee 38 after all, to the NSDAP member Bernhard Gottlob. We do not know the exact circumstances that prompted Adolf Uscher Friedmann to sell at this time. The purchase price of RM 48,000 was significantly below the then market value of at least RM 55,700, as was revealed in the later restitution proceedings. After deduction of mortgage debts, real estate taxes, brokerage and notary fees, approximately 2,500 RM are said to have been paid out to Adolf Uscher Friedmann in cash.

Deportation to Zbaszyn/Bentschen (Poland)
On October 28, 1938, approximately 17,000 Jews of Polish origin were deported from the German Reich to Poland as part of the so-called Polish Action. The Polish government had previously threatened not to renew the passports of the Poles living abroad. This would have turned them into stateless persons. The Nazi government feared that thousands of "Eastern Jews" would remain permanently on German territory. Without warning and without regard to the person, men, women and children were then taken from their workplaces or homes throughout the German Reich, grouped together in various places and deported on the same day by rail across the Polish border at Zbaszyn (Bentschen), Chojnice (Konitz) in Pomerania and Bytom in Upper Silesia. The costs of the deportation operation were to be borne by the Reich budget "insofar as they cannot [...] be collected from the deported foreigners."

The approximately 1000 people from Greater Hamburg were first taken to Neu Bentschen (today Zbąszynek) and from there forcibly driven across the Polish border to Zbaszyn (Bentschen). They included the family of Martin Friedmann with six persons and the family of Adolf Uscher Friedmann with seven persons. From the residential house Wohlersallee 38 the family of Szyja Osias Schullerer with six persons and the couple Nechemiah and Scheindel Sabina Weissmann were also affected (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de).

We know only fragmentarily from witness statements how the deportation of the two Friedmann families took place. They are said to have been arrested early in the morning, like most of the other people affected, loaded onto trucks and driven away. The people were gathered partly in the prison on Hütten Street in Neustadt, partly in a large hall in Altona, but also in a schoolyard, which Bertha Schullerer later reported. By train, which left Altona at ½ 8 o'clock in the evening, they were taken to Neu Bentschen, which they reached at 5 o'clock in the morning. After a long march, they reached no-man's land on the Polish border and were pushed across the Polish border by German security forces, some with bayonets planted. Only after a stay of several hours in a wooded area on the Polish side were they allowed to enter Zbaszyn (Bentschen). They were assigned empty horse stables in a former barracks. In this camp many had to hold out under undignified conditions, in some cases until late summer 1939.

After their deportation to Zbaszyn in October 1938, there was no sign of life from Martin (Majer, Meir, Marcus) Friedmann, his wife Anna, and the children Taube Toni, Susi (Sara Chaja), Lea (Lydia), Rahel (Zipora).

The fate of Adolf Uscher Friedmann's family can be traced until the end of 1940: Based on an agreement between the German and Polish governments of January 24, 1939, some of the deported Jews were allowed to "return temporarily for the liquidation of their left-behind property." Berta Brandla Friedmann, Adolf Uscher's wife, returned to Altona on June 12, 1939. During her brief return - she was to leave Germany again by July 25, 1939 - she lodged in the apartment of the Jewish leather merchant Moritz Blank at General-Litzmann-Straße 93 (today Stresemannstraße). It does not survive how this was possible, since Moritz Blank's family had also been deported to Poland on October 28, 1938. The enforcement officers had locked the apartment, as they had done with all the others, and taken the keys.

Berta Brandla Friedmann tried to obtain approval from the Chief Finance President for the transfer of money and furnishings to Poland. On June 16, 1939, the Reichsbankstelle Hamburg-Altona agreed to the transfer of blocked RM 2,500 from the sale of the house at Wohlersallee 38 to Poland with the marginal note: "Hurry very much, must get out of Germany by July 25, 1939." An "application to take along removal goods" signed by Berta Brandla Friedmann, listed in two lists with a total of 203 items and dated July 10, 1939, was approved by the foreign exchange office of the Chief Finance President.

The former Jewish lawyer Hugo Möller, who now had to call himself "Konsulent" and was only allowed to take on mandates from Jews, was refused in December 1940 to transfer an little amount of 7.27 RM to Adolf Uscher Friedmann to Tarnow, Slowackistraße 6a, Generalgouvernement. Therefore, it can be assumed that the blocked bank balance and the removal goods also never came into the possession of the Adolf Uscher Friedmann family.

After December 1940 there was never any sign of life from Adolf Uscher Friedmann, his wife Bertha Brandla and their children Hanna Toni, Bertha Ruth, Siegbert, Golda Freide and Rebecka (Mirjam). They were declared dead on May 8, 1945.

Martin and Adolf Uscher Friedmann's siblings survived the period of Nazi rule. As reported above, Osias Oskar (Jehoshua) and Josef Samuel Friedmann had already fled to Palestine with their father in 1934. Toni Taube Friedmann, born in 1911, also emigrated there. She was married to Menacham Gafne and Israel Halpert, with whom she had a total of three children.

Berta Brane Friedmann married on June 2, 1933 the non-Jewish Karl-Heinz Kuhse, born on December 16, 1908. Through the marriage she received German citizenship. As she later reported, she evaded the obligation to register and lived illegally - often under a false name. She was probably denounced by neighbors who took offense at her anti-fascist attitude and suspected her of being Jewish.

From August 15, 1944 to April 22, 1945 she was imprisoned in a labor education camp and then in pre-trial detention in the police prison in Schneidemühl (today Pila). She had to do heavy earthwork there and fell seriously ill several times due to inadequate nutrition, but lived to see the liberation. According to restitution documents, her daughter Rosemarie, born in 1930 and considered a "Jewish Mischling," also survived the Nazi period.

Translation Beate Meyer

Stand: February 2023
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; StaH 213-13 Landgericht Hamburg – Wiedergutmachung 5300 Adolf Uscher Friedmann, 33731 Friedmann Josef, 314-15 Oberfinanzpräsident (Devisenstelle und Vermögensverwertungsstelle) F 2387 Nechemia Weissmann, FVg 5243 Uscher Friedmann, 332-5 Standesämter 3511 Heiratsregister Nr. 526/1925 Majer Friedmann/Anna Weissmann, 5387 Sterberegister Nr. 516/1932 Golde Frieda Friedmann, 14028 Heiratsregister Nr. 97 Karl-Heinz Kuhse/Brane Friedmann, 351-11 Wiedergutmachung 3212 Salomon Friedmann, 33024 Adolf Uscher Friedmann, 39075 Bertha Kuhse, 48789 Hannah Toni Friedmann, 50355 Golde Friedmann, 50388 Rebecca Friedmann, 424-11 Amtsgericht Altona 6121 Adolf Friedmann, 6782 Anna Friedmann,741-4_K 4428 Einwohnermeldedaten Friedmann; Ina Lorenz/Jörg Berkemann, Die Hamburger Juden im NS-Staat 1933 bis 1938/39, Band II, S. 1096-1107, Göttingen 2016; Beate Meyer (Hrsg.), Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der Hamburger Juden 1933-1945, 2. Aufl., Hamburg 2007, S. 25, 115-117. Michael Studemund-Halévy, Im jüdischen Hamburg Ein Stadtführer von A bis Z, Hamburg 2011, S. 140f.
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