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Aron Julius Rosemann * 1872

Dillstraße 15 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

1942 Theresienstadt
ermordet am 16.10.1943

further stumbling stones in Dillstraße 15:
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Aron Julius Rosemann, born on 22 July 1872 in Hamburg, deported to Theresienstadt on 15 July 1942, died there on 16 Oct. 1943

Dillstrasse 15

Aron Julius Rosemann was born in Hamburg on 22 July 1872 as the first child of the married couple Julius and Jeanette Rosemann, née Wehl. The father, Julius Rosemann, had a coffee and tea store and he was also a synagogue caretaker. Aron Julius Rosemann had at least three younger siblings, Henry, Marie and Rosalie, whose fate we do not know.

According to the recollections of his second wife, Aron had attended high school (Gymnasium) and subsequently completed an apprenticeship as a merchant.

On 12 Apr. 1901, Aron Julius Rosemann married his first wife Regine (sometimes also referred to as Regina), née Deutsch. One year later, on 24 Feb. 1902, the first son, Max Michel, was born in his parents’ home at Bogenstrasse 3. He was followed by son Walter in 1903 and the two daughters Paula and Marie in 1905 and 1907.

The family relocated several times during these years. In 1904, the Rosemanns moved to Laufgraben 12, before settling at Brüderstrasse 26 in 1907, and finally at Poolstrasse 12 in 1913. In the Hamburg directory, Aron Julius Rosemann is listed as Arnold Rosemann from 1904 onward. Several documents from restitution files of his family also give reason to believe that his relatives, too, called him by this name, which is apparently Germanized.

Arnold Rosemann worked as a salaried egg trader for a long time before he is mentioned as the owner of his own egg store starting in 1907. The Anton Deutsch & Co. enterprise, which he ran together with his business partner Anton Deutsch, remained under Arnold’s management until 1920.

In the same year, Arnold retired from the merchant business and became a "synagogue official.” In 1926, after the death of his father Julius, who had been caretaker of the Neue Dammtorsynagoge on Beneckestrasse since 1907, Arnold took over his office, which he held until he retired in 1936. The Neue Dammtorsynagoge offered Hamburg Jews a religious middle course between liberal and orthodox Judaism.

Not only Arnold Rosemann’s professional but also his private life changed in the mid 1920s. In Dec. 1925, he suffered a stroke of fate: His wife Regine died at the Israelite Hospital in Hamburg at the age of only 48. Her grave is in the Ohlsdorf Jewish Cemetery.

In 1927, a new phase in Arnold Rosemann’s life began. On 31 Mar. 1927, about two years after the early death of his first wife, Arnold married Thekla Saberski, née Okunski, also widowed in 1925. In the same year, the newlywed Rosemann couple moved to Beneckestrasse 2, in the rear building of which the Neue Dammtorsynagoge was located. Arnold Rosemann spent the rest of his life by Thekla’s side.

The Rosemann family was massively affected by the Nazi persecution measures. The synagogue, Arnold Rosemann’s workplace, was devastated during the November Pogrom in 1938 (later it was repaired in a makeshift manner). On 28 Mar. 1939, the Rosemann couple was forced to move from their last voluntary address at Meerweinstrasse 6, where Arnold and Thekla had lived since 1935, after short stays at Grindelallee 68 and 25, to a cramped two-room apartment in a "Jews’ house” ("Judenhaus”) at Dillstrasse 15.

From Sept. 1941 onward, they were forced to wear the "Jews’ star” ("Judenstern”), and in addition, they suffered considerable discrimination and hostility. At times, Thekla did not dare leave the house for fear of some residents’ readiness to use violence. Arnold Rosemann’s children, who worked as employees in various industries, were discriminated against in the workplace. Paula was dismissed after her employer allegedly received threatening letters because of her employment in his business.

All four children decided to emigrate between 1934 and 1939. Walter left Germany in 1934 for Palestine, where he settled with his wife. His older brother Max Michel and his wife left for South Africa in 1935 and moved to Cape Town, where Marie and her husband Hans followed them in Apr. 1937. Paula moved from Hamburg to Rothenkirchen in the Vogtland region in 1937, where she took up a job in a Jewish household. However, she lost that job the following year when the family emigrated. After another short stay in Hamburg, during which she lived with her father and stepmother, Paula left for Britain in 1939.

Actually, the Rosemann parents and Paula had decided to follow Max and Marie to Cape Town at the next opportunity. For this reason, Paula left her belongings packed in boxes in her parents’ apartment, who in turn promised to take them to South Africa. There they intended to reunite. However, after her arrival in Britain, Paula Rosemann was interned as an "enemy alien” from 1939 to 1941 and lost her entire trousseau, so she was unable to continue her further migration to South Africa for the time being.

Arnold and Thekla Rosemann’s emigration plans also failed, presumably due to the beginning of the war, because like Great Britain, South Africa also declared war on Germany, and in Oct. 1941, Germany prohibited Jews from emigrating in general – on 15 July 1942, they were deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto, their transport with no. VI/1, no. 730 reached its destination one day later.

The Rosemanns remaining household effects were confiscated, as were Paula’s belongings. The forced sale took place in Sept. 1942; the proceeds amounted to 1,900 RM, which were confiscated to the benefit of the German Reich. In later proceedings for restitution, the value of the household effects auctioned, which included silverware, was estimated at around 35,000 RM. A former neighbor from Meerweinstrasse later recalled that the Rosemanns’ apartment had been well furnished. Thekla Rosemann had inherited the fortune of her first husband; Arnold Rosemann had earned a good income during his time as a merchant.

Arnold Julius Rosemann died in Theresienstadt on 16 Oct. 1943. His widow Thekla survived the time in the ghetto. She was freed by Allied troops in May 1945 and returned to Hamburg. Her health had been severely affected by the conditions in Theresienstadt and in Hamburg, she lived in a Jewish retirement home in the Rotherbaum quarter until her death on 16 May 1964.

Paula resided in Tel Aviv after the end of the war, before moving to New York with her husband. None of Arnold Julius Rosemann’s four children ever returned to Germany.

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

Stand: September 2020
© Lisa Marie Behm

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 7; 8; StaH, 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung, Nr. 3217 Rosemann, Thekla (verw. Saberski); StaH, 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung, Nr. 29928 Kempinski, Paula (1954-1967); StaH, 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung, Nr. 27518 Rosemann, Walter Wolff (1956-1975); StaH, 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung, Nr. 26338 Rosemann, Max Michel (1957-1978); StaH, 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung, Nr. 28337 Caspari, Hans (1965-1978); StaH, 213-13 Landgericht Hamburg – Wiedergutmachung, Nr. 8549 Rosemann, Aron (1948-1963); Hamburger Adressbuch, Jahrgänge1903 bis 1913; Heiratsurkunde von Aron Julius Rosemann und Regine Deutsch, Zugriff via Ancestry; Website des jüdischen Friedhofs Hamburg, Zugriff über: http://www.jfhh.org/suche.php [zuletzt aufgerufen am 04.05.2018].
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