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Rosa Seidler geb. Blumenreich
© Yad Vashem

Rosa Seidler (née Blumenreich) * 1889

St. Benedictstraße 29 (Eimsbüttel, Harvestehude)

1941 Lodz
1942 weiterdeportiert

further stumbling stones in St. Benedictstraße 29:
Paula Frank, Anna Fürth, Olga Joseph

Rosa Seidler, née Blumenreich, born on 27.9.1889, deported on 25.10.1941 to Lodz/"Litzmannstadt" ghetto, murdered in May 1942 in the Chelmno/Kulmhof death camp

St. Benedictstraße 29 (Harvestehude)

Rosa Blumenreich was born on Sept. 27, 1889 in Georgenberg/Tarnowitz. We cannot report anything about her parents. She trained as a nurse. In 1909 she married Hermann Seidler, born on Nov. 10, 1878 in Hindenburg/Upper Silesia, on September 10 at her hometown.

Like her, he also came from a Jewish family. His parents were Nathan and Friederike Seidler, née Glücksmann. Hermann Seidler had attended the Gymnasium in Gliwice. He lived there during his school years with a family that took care of children whose parents lived in the countryside. After graduating from high school, he studied pharmacy in Munich and Berlin, passing his exams on October 22, 1902, and planned to become a self-employed pharmacist.

Hermann and Rosa Seidler had their daughter Gerda Lotte in Beuthen/Krakow on June 19, 1911. There Hermann Seidler bought a pharmacy in the street Am Ring, which he sold again in 1914. The couple decided to move to Hamburg, where they expected better prospects for the future.

In Hamburg, Hermann Seidler took over the Theodor Neemann Pharmacy at Billhorner Röhrendamm 211 in Rothenburgsort from the previous owner Johann Carl Theodor Neemann (born Sept. 22, 1865, died Jan. 25, 1920) in 1914. Hermann Seidler also trained apprentices in his pharmacy, including the non-Jewish Albert Gogrewe (born Febr. 22, 1890).

The daughter Gerda Lotte Seidler initially attended a private school in Hamburg and then went to the Hansarealschule (today Helene-Lange-Oberrealschule).

On April 15, 1920, Hermann Seidler took over the administration for the Einhorn Pharmacy from his predecessor Joseph Wollenberg. He had a telephone line installed there and on June 24, 1920, he signed the administrator's contract. He employed Albert Gogrewe there as a clerk. And he also took over the administration for the property at Reeperbahn 157-161 like that of the property Herrenweide 35 on St. Pauli, which belonged to Elise Moses (born March 8, 1872).

Hermann and Rosa Seidler themselves moved to Hansastraße 59 in Harvestehude in 1920. Hermann Seidler joined the Jewish Community of Hamburg on January 17, 1921.

Because of his business practices as a pharmacist, he came into conflict with the law several times in the 1920s: On the one hand, he sold tablets produced by himself as a wholesaler through the pharmacy. He did not have a license for this. He assumed, he defended himself, that he had taken over the wholesale of self-manufactured medicines from the previous owner Joseph Wollenberg. For the lack of a permit he received a prison sentence of 4 days.

Secondly, he had further distributed narcotics supplied by the Woortmann-Möller company to the Einhorn Pharmacy - a total of 1000 grams of morphine and cocaine in 1920 and 1921 - together with Emil Nathan (born April 16, 1851) and Joseph Wollenberg (born Febr. 7, 1863).

Finally, on January 24, 1923, criminal proceedings were initiated against Hermann Seidler for dealing in the prescription drug Salvarsan, which was used to treat syphilis. He had distributed this drug without permission together with the physicians Heinrich Sarason (born March 8, 1836), Carl Simonsen (born June 27, 1893), Fritz Quasig (born June 19, 1886) and Albert Burdet (born Oct. 5, 1891).

Hermann Seidler was sentenced to three months in prison and a payment - due to inflation - of 10 trillion marks for dealing in the narcotics morphine and cocaine and for dealing in the prescription drug Salvarsan on December 14, 1923.

On March 28, 1924, Hermann Seidler finished his administrative duties for the Einhorn Pharmacy and worked there as an assistant until March 30, 1931. On March 31, he resumed his stewardship.

From 1927, the Seidler couple lived at Brahmsallee 27 in Harvestehude.
Hermann Seidler wanted a successor for the Einhorn Pharmacy, and his daughter Gerda Lotte showed interest. Her father sent her to Berlin to be apprenticed to a pharmacist. She then successfully passed her practical examination in Hamburg at the Einhorn Pharmacy.

On June 1, 1936, Hermann Seidler signed a purchase agreement with the previous owner, Elise Moses, for the pharmacy and the approximately 1,000 square meter property at the corner of Reeperbahn 157 to 161 and Herrenweide 35 (the street no longer exists today). He received the house for mortgage. This was to provide him with a modest livelihood. All expenses were borne by him from day to hour. Since Elise Moses moved to Belgium to her daughter immediately after the sale, she issued him a power of attorney. The transfer in the land register was supposed to take place on October 1, 1936. However, this did not happen because Hermann Seidler had not paid the taxes due.

Hermann Seidler had sold the pharmacy to Albert Gogrewe, who took over its management on June 1, 1936. Payment in installments had been agreed upon, but the buyer did not keep this arrangement. He was of the opinion that promises made to Jews did not have to be kept. (Albert Gogrewe was not a member of the NSDAP, he merely belonged to the NSV (National Socialist People's Welfare Organization)).

The dentist Max Fülscher had taken an apartment in the house at Reeperbahn 159. He had a friendly relationship with Hermann Seidler. Soon after moving in, Max Fülscher asked Hermann Seidler for a three-month deferment of the rent. The three months turned into a whole year and the rent debt finally amounted to 1200 RM.

The Hamburgische Grundstücksgesellschaft mbH Reichenstraße 67 managed the property for Hermann Seidler. Its managing director wanted to collect the rent debt, since the money was needed to pay the tax. But Hermann Seidler wanted to settle the matter amicably. Max Fülscher also repeatedly assured him of payment, allegedly he first wanted to sell his furniture in his villa in Blankenese, but that had long since happened.

When Hermann Seidler then approached Max Fülscher, the latter asked for a monthly installment payment of 200 RM. This also failed to materialize. Finally, a dispute arose in which Max Fülscher denied that Hermann Seidler was entitled to the money at all; Elise Moses was entitled to it. Only when Hermann Seidler had the property company inform Max Fülscher's lawyer that the tenant was mistaken, did the amount finally arrive in his account. However, Max Fülscher subsequently stirred up trouble against Hermann Seidler among the other tenants.

Hermann Seidler was in Fuhlsbüttel Prison from March 30, 1937 to April 7, 1937. We do not know the reasons for the imprisonment. After imprisonment, he suffered from cardiomyopathy and rheumatism, complaints that remained.

On December 3, 1937, Hermann Seidler was ordered to pay the real estate transfer tax for the property Reeperbahn 157-161 in the amount of RM 11,042. According to the legal regulations, it still belonged to Elise Moses as of December 31, 1938. There were still mortgages on the property at the time of the sale. Hermann Seidler called in the Garantiegenossenschaft Hamburg Altonaer Apothekerbesitzer mbH (Hamburg Altona Pharmacist Owners' Guarantee Association), which was supposed to help pharmacists obtain their rights. According to the lawyers, Elise Moses should actually only have been allowed to sell the property free of encumbrances; it took until February 24, 1939, for the lawyers to report a successful conclusion for Hermann Seidler.

Since September 1938, Hermann, Rosa and Gerda Lotte Seidler had lived at Oberstraße 112 in Harvestehude. The relentless plundering of the Jews did not stop at them. The Chief Finance Office imposed on Hermann Seidler to sell the property on the Reeperbahn with the sold pharmacy, a cinema, a pub, a store and about 12 rented apartments within six months. On November 8, 1938, he sold it to Karl-Ludwig Pirsch-Steigerwald and Hildegard Ida Reber for a low price of RM 215,000, given the actual value. (The house on the Reeperbahn was bombed out during the war).

The Seidlers were among the wealthier Jews who were called upon to pay the "Judenvermögensabgabe" after the November pogrom. The couple paid RM 6,750 in five installments, beginning in December 1938.

On January 17, 1939, Jewish dentists, pharmacists and veterinarians lost their licenses, including Hermann Seidler.

Like all Jews, the Seidler couple had to hand over their radio, opera glasses, electrical household items and jewelry in the spring of 1939.

Hermann Seidler still had a claim against Albert Gogrewe and Johannes Klaproth, the current owners of the Einhorn Apotheke. He assigned the claim in the amount of RM 26,500 to the widow Eimo Dorothea Johanna Christine Hinrichs on July 1, 1939.

Hermann Seidler's daughter Gerda Lotte, who could no longer expect to work in a pharmacy in Hamburg, no longer saw any career prospects in Germany. She left for Australia in April 1939 on the M.S. Talisman of the shipping company Wilhelm Wilhelmsen. The complete emigration costs had been paid by her father Hermann Seidler.

Rosa and Hermann Seidler had to leave their apartment at Oberstraße 112 when the house was sold and the new owner did not tolerate Jewish tenants. According to the law on tenancies with Jews, he was entitled to do so. On October 26, 1939, Hermann and Rosa Seidler moved to the second floor of St. Benedictstraße 29.

The Seidler couple still owned shares in the Silesian Elektrische Gas Werke, which they had to exchange for Reich Treasury Bonds for 10,000 RM. (With the fixed-interest Reichsschatzanweisungen, the German Reich financed the expenses for the war).

Rosa Seidler rented a room to her sister-in-law Gertrud Seidler (born April 5, 1888) on April 5, 1940, who returned to Berlin after one month. Presumably she celebrated her birthday with her brother and sister-in-law in Hamburg. (Gertrud Seidler was deported to Auschwitz on January 12, 1943 and murdered).

On September 19, 1940, Hermann Seidler died of heart muscle weakness and liver and kidney atrophy. He was buried in the Jewish Cemetery Ilandkoppel in grave P1 No. 232.

Shortly before the emigration of his daughter, Hermann Seidler had disinherited her in favor of his wife; however, Rosa Seidler had no power of disposal over the inheritance, which was stored in a blocked account. (However, due to this will, Gerda Lotte Seidler never had a claim for compensation later on).

Rosa Seidler now had to cope with all adversities and challenges on her own. She rented one room of her 3 ½ room apartment to Zerline Adler (born May 20, 1872), who moved in on December 3, 1940. (Zerline Adler was deported to Theresienstadt on July 19, 1942 and murdered in Treblinka). She rented another room to Olga Joseph, who moved in on August 5, 1941 (Olga Joseph was deported to Minsk on November 18, 1941 and murdered. See www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de.).

Rosa Seidler also had to pay the rental income into her "security account," which she could not freely dispose of. After she had outlined her living expenses, the Chief Finance Office allowed her to consume 375 RM per month on August 26, 1941.

Rosa Seidler received her "resettlement order" (i.e. order for deportation) for the first large-scale deportation from Hamburg on October 25, 1941. A neighbor, the non-Jewish janitor Rudolf Drewes from St. Benedictstraße 29, still accompanied her to the Moorweide. As permitted, she took with her a small heating stove, some cutlery and a mattress sewn into a sack for the alleged "settlement in the East".

Like Rosa Seidler, all those summoned for deportation had to present themselves the evening before at the lodge house on Moorweidenstraße. The "Jewish Religious Association," as the Jewish community now had to call itself, had set up double bunk beds for the overnight stay. Food was organized by helpers from the Jewish Community House on Hartungstraße.

Erika, a 13-year-old girl from Hamburg at the time, still remembers that in the morning, on her way to school from the street An der Alster to today's Helene Lange School on Bogenstraße, she saw the many people who gathered on the square on Moorweidenstraße (today "Platz der Deportierten"). This was a very frightening image for Erika, which was deeply impressed on her mind.

The train of deportees departed from the Hanover train station in Hamburg at Lohseplatz at 10:10 in the morning of October 25, 1941. 1034 Jews had to make the journey. They arrived the next day at noon at Radegast station in Lodz, which the German occupiers had renamed "Litzmannstadt." The walk to the ghetto was short. This had been set up by the German administration in the Jewish poor quarter of Lodz, Baluty, it was supposed to be a residential and production ghetto with numerous factories that mainly produced textiles.

Rosa Seidler lived there in a flat at Rauchgasse 21/Lodz with six other adults and two children. The barracks and wooden houses had neither water supply nor sanitary facilities. We do not know if and where Rosa Seidler worked, perhaps she was employed as a trained nurse in the ghetto hospital.

On May 1, 1942, the Jewish camp administration noted Rosa Seidler's "Aussiedlung” ("resettlement") from the ghetto in the records. The term "Aussiedlung" referred to the murder at the Chelmno/Kulmhof extermination site, about 60 km away, which presumably took place on the very day of her arrival.

Rosa Seidler was 52 years old.

On the fate of Rosa Seidler's daughter:
Gerda Lotte Seidler married in Australia. Her married name was then Tenenbaum. She died on December 30, 1999 in Melbourne/Australia.

Translation by Beate Meyer
Stand: February 2022
© Bärbel Klein

Quellen: 1; 2; 4; 5; 6; 8; StaH 213-13_12473; 213-13_17822; 213-13_18763; 213-13_21042; 231-8_1961-13; 231—7_A1 Band 54 Nr. 12975; 231-7_A 1 Band 209_46086; 351-11_36746; 352-3_IV G 27; 741-4_ K 2449; 332-8_K4828; Geburtsurkunde Zaborze 237/1885 und 282/1888; Archiv Lodz, 1601294926.1301706-RG-15.083M.0239.00000325, 1601294805.1279397.RG-15.083M.0203.00000523; Alfred Gottwaldt/Diana Schulle, Die Judendeportationen aus dem Deutschen Reich 1941-1945, Wiesbaden 2005, S. 76f.; Beate Meyer (Hg), Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der Hamburger Juden 1933-1945, Geschichte, Zeugnis, Erinnerung, Hamburg/Göttingen 2007, S. 58, 60.; Bundesarchiv, NSDAP-Mitgliederkartei, BBA – R 9353-27 Mitgliedskarte Albert Gogrewe; www.wikipedea.de; www.geni.com; www.ancestry.de (Einsicht am 6.11.2020).
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