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Frania Lustgarten (née Krämer) * 1892

Eppendorfer Baum 6 (Eimsbüttel, Harvestehude)

HIER WOHNTE
FRANIA LUSTGARTEN
GEB. KRÄMER
JG. 1892
AUSGEWIESEN 1938
ZBASZYN / POLEN
???

further stumbling stones in Eppendorfer Baum 6:
Nathan Hersch Bernstein, Etel Bernstein, Margot Regensberg, Adolph Rubensohn

Frania (Frieda) Lustgarten, née Krämer, born on 2 June 1892 in Tarnow (Galicia), expelled on 28 Oct. 1938 to Zbaszyn, after the outbreak of war committed to the Tarnow Ghetto Tarnow, missing there

Eppendorfer Baum 6

Frania Lustgarten was born on 2 June 1892 as a Jewish child in Tarnow (Galicia). No details are known about her childhood, youth, training, changes of residence, or the date of her wedding. She was married to the businessman Yehoshua Baruch Lustgarten, born on 9 Feb. 1892. On 14 Oct. 1919, he registered his business as a merchant for leather and shoe materials, based in his store at Lübecker Strasse 107–109. In addition, he also owned two other stores for leather and work clothes in Hammerbrook. On 7 Feb. 1917, daughter Regina was born in Berlin, and their daughter Lotti (Tamar) on 7 Aug. 1920 in Hamburg. Since 1917, the family lived in Hamburg. From 1919 onward, Frania Lustgarten operated the business in Lübecker Strasse jointly with her husband. The family was considered prosperous, owning a spacious house with ten rooms at Klaus-Groth Strasse 9. On 24 Aug. 1928, Yehoshua Baruch Lustgarten passed away.

Widowed at age 36 and responsible for two underage daughters, Frania Lustgarten sold the two branches in Hammerbrook and managed the store in Lübecker Strasse on her own over the following five years. After the Nazis assumed power in 1933, she too was exposed to the boycott measures against Jewish businesses and organizations. For this reason, in 1934 she sold her business for a "ridiculously low price,” as emerges from a declaration in lieu of an oath dated 22 Aug. 1962. Probably in anticipation of things to come, Frania Lustgarten had built up a substantial stock of leather and shoe materials in her house at Klaus-Groth Strasse 9, managing to earn a living for herself and her daughters from selling these articles in the years leading up to 1937.

On 30 July 1937, Frania Lustgarten was forced to sell the residential building at Klaus-Groth Strasse 9 as well. Afterward, she lived with the daughters in two rooms of an apartment belonging to the Zionist Association (Zionistische Vereinigung) at Eppendorfer Baum 6. Even as early as that year, 1937, her daughter Regina was able to depart for Palestine; Lotti followed in 1938. In 1957, Lotti stated, "There was the intention of our mother still emigrating as well. The file of the foreign currency office kept on our mother also reveals that she had already handed over the moving goods to the Gärtner & Co. shipping company, with destination Israel. However, these moving goods never arrived.”

Soon afterward, Frania Lustgarten was already caught in financial straits. In a letter by Elkan Hirsch, the daughter’s legal guardian, to the Chief Finance Administrator (Oberfinanzpräsident) dated 30 Sept. 1937, he asks for permission "for paying out of the assets of Miss Regina Lustgarten a sum of 25 RM a week to the mother.” Later, Frania Lustgarten was forced to work as a cleaner for the Zionist Association.

On 28 Oct. 1938, she was expelled, due to her Polish descent, in the context of the "expulsion of Polish Jews” (Polenaktion) to Zbaszyn/Poland. The individuals affected only had a few hours to pack their belongings and bid farewell. From Hamburg, approx. 1,000 persons were arrested, initially assembled in a prison or a guarded gym, respectively, which they were not allowed to leave until their deportation. At this time, Frania Lustgarten was still weakened owing to an illness, and she was unable to carry on her own her two suitcases with clothes and a few other belongings. When crossing the border to Poland, the luggage went missing, requiring her to cope, completely destitute, in a situation already hopeless as it was. The transfer of money from Hamburg to Zbaszyn, too, was prohibited by the foreign currency office.

On 27 May 1939, Frania Lustgarten got permission to return to Hamburg one last time for 14 days in order to settle her affairs. By that time, her household at Eppendorfer Baum 6 had been sold by a confidante of her working at the Zionist Association.

After the beginning of the war, Frania Lustgarten was transported to Tarnow, her birthplace near Cracow, ending in the local ghetto, and she has been considered missing since then.
The last sign of life from their mother reached daughters Regina and Lotti Lustgarten shortly before the start of World War II on 1 Sept. 1939. Until then, correspondence by letter had still been possible.
Frania Lustgarten was declared dead as of 8 May 1945.


Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: March 2017
© Götz Plantiko

Quellen: StaH, Bestand 331-1 Polizeibehörde I Sign. 116 UA 10 Frania Lustgarten; StaH 314-15, OFP F 1582, AZ: OFP F 15824; Akte des Amtsgerichts Hamburg, betr. Regina Lustgarten, AZ 112 VIII L 845; StaH 351-11, Beate Meyer, Ausweisung polnischer Juden, in: Handbuch des Antisemitismus Bd. 4 (Hrsg. Wolfgang Benz), Berlin/New York 2011, S. 29–32.