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Else Nathan (née Seidel) * 1871
Isestraße 45 (Eimsbüttel, Harvestehude)
1942 Theresienstadt
tot 30.8.1942
further stumbling stones in Isestraße 45:
Else Leopold, Lambert Leopold
Else Nathan, née Seidl, born on 30 Aug. 1871 in Zerbst, deported on 15 July 1942 to Theresienstadt, died there on 30 Aug. 1942
Else Nathan, née Seidl, from Sachsen-Anhalt was married to Siegfried Nathan. The two had three children: Alice Marianne, subsequent married name Stern, son Richard Hermann, and the youngest daughter, Erna, subsequent married name Schlesinger. Else Nathan’s husband operated a tobacco trading company since 1927. Business went poorly, however, and thus the couple was compelled to apply for welfare assistance. Siegfried Nathan suffered from a heart condition, his wife Else from a chronic inflammation resulting from an operation.
The welfare services file on the couple provides an appalling example of how these destitute, ill people were humiliated by the authority through cynical comments and how the civil servants approved medical assistance only reluctantly if at all. With their health seriously impaired the two moved frequently because they were unable to pay the rent.
In Nov. 1938, daughter Erna emigrated to South Africa; half a year later, in June 1939, the oldest daughter, Alice Marianne, fled to the USA.
When Siegfried Nathan passed away in 1940, Else Nathan moved to the "Jews’ house” ("Judenhaus”) at Haynstrasse 7, living there as a subtenant with Levy.
In Jan. 1941, her welfare assistance was cancelled. Prior to her deportation to Theresienstadt on 15 July 1942, she had to move to the "Jews’ house” located at Beneckestrasse 6 near Bornplatz. In 1957, an acquaintance, the widow Auguste Behrens, remembered in connection with the so-called restitution proceedings (Wiedergutmachungsverfahren) her last meeting with Else Nathan: "So when I visited Mrs. Nathan near Bornplatz as well, she explained to me one or two days before her deportation that she would be picked up for transport to Theresienstadt the next morning. I recall having bought her shopping bag. Then I bid farewell to her because I could not get myself to accompany her, good old acquaintance, to the transport car. I never heard anything about her again.” Else Nathan died in the hospital in Theresienstadt on 30 Aug. 1942. Her son Richard was murdered in Auschwitz.
Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.
Stand: November 2017
© Maike Grünwaldt
Quellen: 1; 2; 4; 8; AfW 300871.
Zur Nummerierung häufig genutzter Quellen siehe Link "Recherche und Quellen".
