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Oskar Helle * 1933

Martin-Luther-King-Platz 3 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

OSKAR HELLE
JG. 1933
DEPORTIERT 1941
MINSK
ERMORDET

further stumbling stones in Martin-Luther-King-Platz 3:
Margarethe Altmann, Bela Anschlawski, Esther Ascher, Hannelore Ascher, Ellen Ingrid Berger, Hanni Bernstein, Karl Heinz Bloch, Hildegard Cohen, Nathan Dan Croner, Heinz Dessau, Zita Feldmann, Jacob Fertig, Hans Frost, Alice Gramm, Else Grunert, Julius Hamburger, Julius Hermannsen, Rebecca Hermannsen, Elchanan Jarecki, Bertha Kleve, Peter Kopf, Erwin Kopf, Manfred Krauthamer, John Löw, Gerda Polak, Inge Polak, Erich Rosenberg, Mirjam Rothschild, Regine Rothschild, Rafael von der Walde

Elise Ingeborg Helle, born on 8 Apr. 1932, deported on 18 Nov. 1941 to Minsk, missing there (Stolperstein planned)

Fruchtallee 115 (Fruchtallee 135)

Oskar Helle, born on 10 Mar. 1933, deported on 18 Nov. 1941 to Minsk, missing there

Martin-Luther-King-Platz 3, Rotherbaum / Fruchtallee 115 (Fruchtallee 135)

When Bertha Helle and Kurt Popper got married in Sept. 1939, the bride, 29 years old at the time, brought three children into the marriage, for this was her second marriage. Born on 26 May 1909 in the Palatine town of Rockenhausen as the daughter of the Jewish couple Salomon and Rosa Roeben, née Rosenzweig, she had married the non-Jewish Carl Oscar Helle in Hamburg in the early 1930s. In Apr. 1932, the young couple had their first child: a girl they named Elise Ingeborg. About a year later, Oskar followed, and after yet another year, on 5 Aug. 1934, a boy by the name of Wolfgang was born. Soon after Wolfgang’s birth, the couple separated, and from Mar. 1935 onward, Bertha Helle lived, without her husband but with her three little children, at Wichernweg 28 in Hamburg-Hamm. In those days, she began working as a sales assistant in order to earn a living for herself and her children – at the time, the oldest child, called Inge, was only two years old, Oskar one year younger, and Wolfgang only a baby. It is not known whether or what kind of support she had in terms of childcare. Nor whether Carl Helle paid alimony. His traces disappear completely after the separation.

Hamburg-Hamm was also the place of residence of Kurt Popper, born in 1908 and Jewish as well. He was a trained office clerk and lived with his parents, Oskar and Rosalie Popper at Horner Weg 270 (see entry on Hildegard, Klara, Oskar, and Rosalie Popper at www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de). The father was a native of Teplitz (today Teplice in the Czech Republic) in Bohemia and had Czech citizenship. Consequently, this also applied to his Hamburg-born wife as well as to Kurt and his siblings: the three older ones, Fred, Hildegard, and Leopold, and the two younger ones, Berta and Klara. Due to their citizenship, they were subsequently not forced to bear the Jewish compulsory names of "Israel” or "Sara,” respectively.

In the long run, his family’s two-bedroom apartment became too cramped for Kurt Popper. He shared what little space there was with his parents and three of his siblings, all of whom except Klara were adults by then. None of them was able to afford an apartment of their own, as unemployment and financial worries dominated their everyday lives.

In this situation, Kurt joined Bertha Helle and her children as a subtenant in 1935. A romantic relationship evolved between the two. However, when he lost his job as an office clerk, he returned to his parents. That same year, Bertha became pregnant from Kurt Popper, and on 10 Mar. 1936, Raphael was born, though he lived for only six weeks.
A few months later, Bertha Helle moved within the Hamm district. She could no longer afford an apartment of her own. Initially, the family lived as subtenants at Dobbelerweg 21 (with Weidner) for four weeks, then moved two houses further to live with Heier, where they did not stay very long either, though. In the spring of 1937, Bertha Helle left this part of town to live with her children as a subtenant (with Scholz) at Osterstrasse 15 in Eimsbüttel.

Kurt Popper had not managed to find a job as an office clerk again. In Sept. 1937, he made a virtue of necessity, bought a three-wheeler, and founded a small company for "express transport of goods,” i.e., he was working as a sort of motorized bicycle courier. The following year, he, along with Bertha and her children, moved into an apartment at Fruchtallee 135, and another year later, in Sept. 1939, they got married. Bertha Helle gave up her job as a sales assistant and joined her husband’s business as a co-owner. Whereas she assumed Popper as her last name upon marriage, her new husband did not adopt her three children. They continued to bear Helle as their last name. In terms of "racial status,” therefore, they were "half-Jews” ("Halbjuden”), though as members of the Jewish Community they were classified as "Jews by definition” ("Geltungsjuden”), who were treated as Jews.

By that time, little Oskar was six years old, staying during the day at the Jewish orphanage at what was then Papendamm 3 in the Grindel quarter, today’s Martin-Luther-King-Platz. His brother Wolfgang was accommodated in the Paulinenstift most of the time, the Jewish orphanage at Laufgraben 37. Only Inge seems to have lived with the parents throughout.

Just a few months before their marriage, Bertha and Kurt Popper succeeded in having five-year-old Wolfgang depart Germany on a "children transport” (Kindertransport). He went directly from the Paulinenstift to Göteborg in Sweden, where he arrived on 5 July 1939, and he was taken in by the family of Pastor Gustav Palmlöf. He had on his person a German vaccination certificate and his birth certificate. Oskar and Inge did not have this opportunity. Together with their mother and her husband, Kurt Popper, they were deported to Minsk on 18 Nov. 1941. The same transport also included Kurt’s parents as well as his sisters Hildegard and Klara. None of them survived.

Bertha and Kurt Popper’s household effects from their apartment on Fruchtallee were publicly auctioned off by Hamburg-based Schlüter auctioneers. The proceeds amounting to 251.45 RM (reichsmark) went to the office of the Chief Finance Administrator (Oberfinanzpräsident). Wolfgang Helle was initially declared dead by the Hamburg District Court (Amtsgericht) on 22 Nov. 1962. Only during more intensive investigations in 1963 in the course of the restitution proceedings that Bertha Popper’s surviving sisters Meta Ransenberg and Selma Jilek had initiated, it turned out that after the war, he had stayed with the Swedish pastor and his wife as a foster child, acquired Swedish citizenship later on, and continued to live in Göteborg.

A Stolperstein for Oskar Helle is located in front of the former orphanage on Laufgraben, along with stumbling stones for 38 other children, caretakers, and educators from the two Jewish orphanages in Hamburg.

Translator: Erwin Fink

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

© Frauke Steinhäuser

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 8; StaH 351-11 Abl. 2008/1 Amt für Wiedergutmachung 260509; StaH 552-1 Jüdische Gemeinden 992e2 Bd 3, Deportationsliste Minsk 18.11.1941; Hildegard Thevs, Hildegard Popper, www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de (letzter Zugriff 29.3.2012); Johann-Hinrich Möller, Stolpersteine in Hamburg. Erinnerung an die Opfer aus den beiden ehem. jüd. Waisenhäusern, www. hagalil.com/archiv/ 2006/06/hamburg.htm (Zugriff 29.3.2012); Gunter Demnig, Peter Hess, Johann-Hinrich Möller (Red.), Papendamm 3 und Laufgraben 37. Erinnerung an die von den Nationalsozialisten ermordeten Kinder, Be­treuerinnen u. Erzieher der ehem. Hamburger Waisenhäuser, www.hagalil.com/archiv/2006/06/waisenhaeuser.htm (Zugriff 29.3.2012).