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Pauline Heller * 1864

Bremers Weg 4 (Altona, Blankenese)

1942 Theresienstadt
ermordet am 4.8.1942

Pauline Heller, born 12 July 1864 in Hamburg, deported 15 July 1942 to Theresienstadt, date of death 4 Aug. 1942

Bremersweg 4 / Strandtreppe 3 (Neuer Weg)

Pauline Heller apparently led an inconspicuous life, as there are few traces of her to be found.

Her father, Sigmund Heller, was a merchant and had been granted Hamburg citizenship in 1860. His wife Malke Kaftal, who was later called Margarethe, was born in Warsaw. According to a statement made to the Reparations Board after the war by Margarethe Katzenstein, née Rothschild, Luise Rothschild’s daughter, the Hellers had four daughters: Florentine (*13 Jan. 1862), Paula, called Pauline (*12 July 1864), Luise, called Lilli (*9 Apr. 1866), and Victorine (*4 Oct. 1870). Sigmund Heller and his son-in-law Maximilian Rothschild, Florentine’s husband, had a trading company for furs and hides on the Pferdemarkt. The company was later "Aryanized.”

The Heller family was likely fairly wealthy. When Pauline’s father died in 1915 he was already a widower. According to the residential registry, Pauline Heller lived in Blankenese at Strandweg 32 and Im Busch 14 from 1918 until 1932, and then at Wittsallee 11 and Elbchaussee 132. From October 1933 onwards her address was Neuer Weg 34 or Bremers Weg 4/Neuer Weg (present-day Strandtreppe) 3.

Pauline Heller never married. Her tax records with the Jewish Community show that she paid 12 Reichsmarks in 1940 and 1941, and in 1942 only 6 Reichsmarks. They indicate that for those years she had no income and no savings.

The records give no indication that she attempted to emigrate. From 1939 until 1941 she lived with her sister Florentine and her husband Maximilian Rothschild at Hindenburgstraße 25. She was finally forced to move into one of the Väterstädtische Trust homes, at Frickestraße 24. On 15 July 1942, aged 78, she was deported to Theresienstadt, where she died three weeks later, on 4 August 1942.

After she was deported, it was found that she owed 30 Reichsmarks in rent, which was paid by the Jewish Community. Her sister Florentine Rothschild was also deported to Theresienstadt, on 24 March 1943. She died there on 8 July 1944. Luise (Lilli) Rothschild was deported from Düsseldorf to Theresienstadt on 27 July 1942, where she died on 10 September 1942.


Translator: Amy Lee
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: April 2018
© Wolfgang Meyer

Quellen: 1; 4; 7; StaH 332-8 Meldewesen, A 50/1 (= 741-4 Fotoarchiv, K 5020).
Zur Nummerierung häufig genutzter Quellen siehe Link "Recherche und Quellen".