Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Marianne Nathan (née Salomon) * 1877

Falkenried 32 (Hamburg-Nord, Hoheluft-Ost)

HIER WOHNTE
MARIANNE NATHAN
GEB. SALOMON
JG. 1877
DEPORTIERT
AUSCHWITZ
ERMORDET 2.1.1943

Marianne Nathan, née Salomon, born on 27.2.1877, denounced, arrested and sentenced on 11.10.1940, deported to Auschwitz on 10.12.1942 and murdered on 2.1.1943

Falkenried 32 / Hoheluft Ost

On August 12, 1948, proceedings were opened against Emma Böttcher for "crimes against humanity” committed against Marianne Nathan at the Hamburg District Court.

What had happened?
Marianne Nathan had been denounced by Emma Böttcher. She had contacted the NSV (Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt, suborganization of the NSDAP) in June 1940 and reported that Marianne Nathan had said "that it would be better if the bombs that had fallen on Hamburg had fallen on Berlin”. The NSV forwarded the statement to the Gestapo, which deemed it "hostile to the state”. Marianne Nathan was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison for this on October 11, 1940. While she was serving her sentence, a decree in 1942 stipulated that German prisons, penitentiaries and concentration camps should be made "free of Jews”, and she was transferred to Auschwitz and murdered there.

The judge in the post-war trial against Emma Böttcher was lenient, although she did not show any insight, but because of her children and because she had not previously committed any crimes, she only received a sentence of nine months in prison.

Who was the denounced Marianne Nathan?
Her parents, Sally and Mathilde Salomon, née Heckscher, had three children. Adolph (born 30.12.1875), Marianne (born 27.2.1877) and Ludwig (born 21.12.1878), who were all born in Hamburg. When Marianne was 13 years old, her brother Ludwig died in the Israelite Hospital on July 11, 1890. Her father Sally Salomon died on April 7, 1892 and Mathilde Salomon on January 4, 1919, both were buried in the Ilandkoppel Jewish Cemetery.

We have no information about Marianne's childhood or her education. As a young woman, she earned her living as a "day maid”, i.e. as a domestic help.

Marianne gave birth to her daughter Frieda on July 15, 1904. She later told the welfare authorities that she had been married to an Otto Salomon, who is said to have been non-Jewish. He is said to have gone to sea as a ship's cook on the "Graf Waldersee” steamer. We were unable to find any evidence of Otto Salomon's marriage or death. (The "Graf Waldersee” was built for the Hamburg Amerika Line by Blohm & Voss in Hamburg in 1898 and scrapped in Germany in 1922).

In 1908 Marianne had a son Albert Salomon (born 21.3.1909) out of wedlock.

On March 30, 1911, she married Abraham Nathan, who had been born on June 16, 1871 in Altona to Jewish parents. (His parents were Nathan Abraham Nathan, who died on January 30, 1893, and his wife Jette, née Magnus, who died on September 16, 1898).

Marianne and Abraham Nathan's son Benny was born on January 5, 1912. He was born with a severe heart defect and over time showed mental and physical developmental disorders.

While their son Albert lived in the orphanage, Marianne Nathan, her husband, Frieda and Benny moved into a two-room apartment on the second floor of Falkenried 32 on April 28, 1914.
The family belonged to the Jewish community.

Abraham Nathan served as a soldier in the First World War; we do not know his military rank. He returned from the war, but died on July 6, 1922 in the Israelite Hospital as a result of the war. Marianne Nathan received a widow's pension after her husband's death, but this was not enough to live on, so she sublet a room to the Burghardt family from 1926. She also took out disability insurance as a precaution and paid RM 0.90 into it every month.

Living with Benny became increasingly difficult. He could no longer be controlled and, according to the files, behaved very disrespectfully towards his mother. During a home visit by the welfare authorities, neighbors also complained that Frieda and Benny were loudly hurling swear words at each other. On October 2, 1927, Marianne registered Benny for admission to the Kalmenhof/Idstein sanatorium, at that time an educational institution for boys with mental disabilities (the institution later became part of the "euthanasia campaign”). On June 14, 1928, the time had come and Benny was admitted to Kalmenhof. The admission findings were "moderate feeblemindedness, heart defect (aortic insufficiency) and difficult breathing at rest”. The 93 RM cost of care at Kalmenhof was covered by the Hamburg Welfare Office.
Benny died in Kalmenhof on May 14, 1929 from acute inflammatory pleurisy with severe pain in the right side, nausea, accelerated pulse and difficult breathing. He was buried in Idstein.

In the fall of 1928, Marianne Nathan took legal action against her subtenants, the Burghardt couple, who had not paid the rent, before the Hamburg district court. Apparently, the subtenant Otto Burghardt had physically threatened and beaten her to make her pay the rent she had never received. Although Marianne Nathan was in the right, the subtenants did not move out until 1929.

In the spring of 1929, she applied for and received additional support of 4 RM from the Jewish community. As a cleaner's wife, she received 10 RM a month for her work, the widow's pension amounted to 17.20 RM, she could not live on this "income”. She also applied to the welfare office for a short-term rent subsidy.

In 1932, she again applied to the welfare office for support. In her current cleaning job, she received 3 RM a week, and the Jewish Community supported her with 2.50 RM a week. She received 25 RM a month for a rented room. This was not enough to live on.

When an employee of the Jewish Community, Mary Hamle, visited Marianne Nathan at home at the request of the welfare office, she noted on July 23, 1932 that her daughter Frieda had moved out in the meantime and was living as a subtenant at Breitenfelder Straße 8 with Bajohr. Her son Albert Salomon was working as a farmhand for a farmer in Daresdorf. Neither child supported Marianne Nathan. Even a letter from the welfare office to them did not bring about any change: Albert Salomon was indignant in his reply, saying that he had only got to know his mother at the age of 14. She had never looked after him and he had lived a life of privation. If the office wanted to make him pay, he would take legal action. Frieda also rejected the idea that she should support her mother from her low earnings at Beiersdorf.

Meanwhile, in October 1932, Marianne Nathan was paying RM 24.70 a month rent for her two-room apartment. She had sublet a room to a Hans Pech couple for 6 RM a week, she now earned 5 RM from her cleaning job, the Jewish community gave her 8 RM and the welfare office 3 RM.

Marianne Nathan, it seems, felt completely overwhelmed by her living situation. She was no longer able to keep her apartment clean and tidy. On November 24, 1933, she even wrote desperately to the National Socialist senator Friedrich Ofterdinger: she had no more money, the subtenants had given notice and, to make matters worse, she had to spend nine weeks in hospital with a serious illness. Her rent debts had now grown to over 61 RM, the property manager had threatened to give her notice, the welfare office now sent her 7 RM, but this was not enough to cover the rent arrears.

On May 30, 1934, after a house visit by the Welfare Office, the continued granting of her support was approved. Marianne was described in the report as completely undernourished. She only occasionally received food from acquaintances and relatives, such as her cousin Iwan Osiakowski (born 6.5.1873, died 28.4.1938; his wife Berthe Osiakowski (born 8.1.1870) and his daughter Paula (born 15.11.1902) were deported to Riga on December 6, 1941).
In the meantime, Marianne Nathan was no longer able to do any cleaning work due to her physical weakness.

In the meantime, the welfare office had discovered that daughter Frieda, who now lived as a subtenant at Weidestraße 67, was earning 20 RM as a packer at Beiersdorf. She again informed the office that she was unable to support her mother.

In 1935, the street Falkenried was renamed Otto-Blöcker-Straße, after a member of the Hitler Youth who had been killed in street fighting in 1933 and was considered a martyr by the National Socialists. (In 1950, the street was given its original name Falkenried again.) This renaming of the street meant that Marianne Nathan did not receive the postal order from the welfare office with her support payment. Even after the address in the file was corrected, the urgently needed money order did not arrive.

Marianne Nathan's hopes of being able to benefit from the disability insurance were also dashed. On May 13, 1938, it terminated her benefits on the grounds that she was not disabled, as an expert opinion dated April 7, 1938 had shown. Her 21 cards with pension stamps stuck on them did not count.

On July 20, 1938, the non-Jewish Charlotte Magdalena Braun, née Kroeger, and her daughter Marie moved in with Marianne Nathan as subtenants, who left for Lübeck after six months. In the course of 1939, Marianne Nathan sublet to the non-Jewish Andreas Julius Josef Onderka.

In 1939, a new neighbor moved into the house, Emma Bertha Böttcher (born 12.11.1909). She had rented the ground floor apartment. She quickly realized that a Jewish woman was living in the much better-insulated apartment above her. Emma Böttcher was of the opinion that Marianne Nathan should take a back seat to her and that, because Marianne was Jewish, she, Emma, should move into the first floor apartment. In order to achieve her goal, Emma Böttcher repeatedly approached the caretaker Leo Motylewski and asked him to ensure that Marianne Nathan had to move out of the apartment.

But it did not stop there: as mentioned at the beginning, Emma Böttcher contacted the NSV in June 1940 and stated that Marianne Nathan had said to her that "it would have been better if the bombs that fell on Hamburg had fallen on Berlin”. The NSV employees passed this statement on to the Gestapo, who then arrested Marianne Nathan on June 28, 1940 and imprisoned her in Fuhlsbüttel. The lodger Marie Braun was questioned as a witness.

Because of her Jewish origins and faith, Marianne Nathan had always kept a low profile and her neighbors described her in court as a quiet and unobtrusive woman. But once denounced, this was of no use to her.

A few days later, probably in August 1940, two men appeared in her apartment, claiming to be employees of the Jewish Community, but in fact probably belonged to the Gestapo. They removed all of Marianne Nathan's belongings. The subtenant Marie Braun had to move out on August 19, 1940. The court case had not yet been concluded when Emma Böttcher's father-in-law renovated the apartment and Emma Böttcher was allowed to move in. She lived in this apartment until her death.

Marianne Nathan was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison on October 11, 1940 after an arbitrary trial in which she was unable to defend herself, as mentioned at the beginning. While she was serving her sentence, a new decree in Oct./Nov. 1942 stipulated that German prisons, penitentiaries and concentration camps were to be made "free of Jews”. Marianne Nathan was transferred to Auschwitz on December 10, 1942. There, January 2, 1943 was entered as the date of death for 64-year-old Marianne Nathan.

The fate of Marianne Nathan's children:
We have no knowledge of Albert Salomon (born 21.3.1909).
Frieda Salomon (born 15.7.1904) married the non-Jewish Hans Leberecht Traugott Goede on August 8, 1945 and had two children with him. She died on December 19, 1984 in Hamburg, her husband on August 8, 1982.

The fate of Marianne Nathan's brother:
Adolph Salomon (born 30.12.1875) married Anna Friedmann/Fried (born 28.2.1880) in Hamburg. They had children Senta (born 25.3.1905), John (born 31.5.1906), Rudolf (born 31.12.1908), Erna Susanne (born 1.8.1911) and Richard Salomon (born 16.7.1913). The couple divorced. Chaje Anna Salomon died on March 27, 1950. Adolph Salomon was deported to Theresienstadt on July 15, 1942 on the transport for the elderly. He died there on May 21, 1944 and is commemorated by a Stumbling Stone at Beim Schlump 9.

Translation: Beate Meyer
Stand: December 2024
© Bärbel Klein

Quellen: 1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 6; 7; StaH, 131-1 II Fürsorgewesen 3756 Betreuung ehem. Jüdischer Mitbürger (Susanne Heckscher); 213-13 Wiedergutmachung 33259 und 33260 (Erna Heckscher); 351-11 Amt f. Wiedergutmachung 1616 (Marianne Nathan), 2885 (Adolf Salomon), 4908 (Chaje Salomon), 28591 (Frieda Goede), 36319 (Susanne Heckscher), 38787 (Richard Salomon); 351-14 Sozialfürsorge 1616 (Marianne Nathan); 331-4 Politisch motivierte Straftaten 218 Blöcker); 332-3 Geburtsregister 865 Nr. 2425/1874 Salomon/Heckscher, 1868 Geburtsregister Nr. 8/1875 Adolph Salomon, 1893 Geburtsregister Nr. 822/1877 Marianne Salomon, 1926 Geburtsregister Nr. 5071/1878 Ludwig Salomon, 276 Sterberegister Nr. 1654/1890 Ludwig Salomon, 321 Sterberegister Nr. 883/1892 Sally Salomon, 14186 Geburtsregister Nr. 1852/1904 Frieda Salomon, 3023 Heiratsregister Nr. 875/1904 Salomon/Fried, 14436 Geburtsregister Nr. 521/1905 Sabine Salomon, 114706 Geburtsregister Nr. 899/1906 John Salomon, 113788 Geburtsregister Nr. 25/1908 Rudolph Salomon, 133669 Geburtsregister Nr. 933/1909 Albert Salomon, 8675 Heiratsregister Nr. 90/1911 Nathan/Salomon, 809 Sterberegister Nr. 17/1919 Mathilde Salomon, 855 Sterberegister Nr. 387/1922 Abraham Nathan, 8075 Sterberegister Nr. 194/1923 Sally Salomon, 11833 Sterberegister Nr. 106/1935 Richard Salomon, 8156 Sterberegister Nr. 196/1938 Iwan Osiakowski, 13811 Sterberegister Nr. 1475/1982 Hans Traugott Leberecht Goede, 14357 Sterberegister Nr. 4077/1984 Frieda Goede, 741-4 Fotoarchiv K 4407 (Burghardt), K 4514 (Onderka), K 6091 (Fried), K 6093 (Fried), K6134 (Goede), K 6218 (Heckscher), K 6655 (Nathan), K 2351 (Falkenried), K 6849 (Salomon), K 4536 (Salomon), A 261 (Salomon); 12 Forschungsstelle für Zeitgeschichte 3 (Otto Blöcker); Email am 24.10.2021 von Katharina Teerstegen Deutsches Schifffahrtsmuseum in Hamburg; www.wikipedea.de; www.geni.com; www.ancestry.de.
Zur Nummerierung häufig genutzter Quellen siehe Link "Recherche und Quellen".