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Minna Lazarus * 1878

Rappstraße 13 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

HIER WOHNTE
MINNA LAZARUS
JG. 1878
DEPORTIERT 1942
THERESIENSTADT
ERMORDET 13.3.1943

further stumbling stones in Rappstraße 13:
Ruth Bieber, Hans-Adolf Frankenthal, Siegfried Frankenthal, Hans Hoffmann, Frieda Hoffmann, Walter Hoffmann, Heimann Horwitz, Hanna Offenburg, Nathan Hirsch Offenburg, Irmgard Posner, Karl Posner

Minna Lazarus, born on 15 Nov. 1878, deported on 15 July 1942 to Theresienstadt, died there on 13 Mar. 1943

Rappstrasse 13 (Rotherbaum)

Minna Lazarus was born as the daughter of the Jewish tailor Moses Behrend (Berman) Lazarus and his wife Susette, née Wolff Elias, in her parents’ home in Hamburg, at Marktstrasse, Site 16, House 4. The father came from Friedrichstadt/Eider, the mother – called Sette – from Rendsburg. After their wedding in Rendsburg on 3 Jan. 1866, the parents moved to Altona, where Minna’s brother Leopold was born on 27 July 1871. On 11 July 1880, the younger sister Rosalie was born, also on Marktstrasse. We know nothing about their childhood and adolescence.

Minna’s brother Leopold established a trading business ("Agentur und Commission”) in 1902 and developed it into a successful company in the textiles and bedding industry until the 1930s. On 7 May 1898, Leopold married Anna Catharina Margaretha Meier, a Protestant from Krummendeich near Stade. Apparently, the Jewish faith did not play a major role for Leopold Lazarus. On 13 Apr. 1916, he resigned from the Israelite Synagogue Community in Wandsbek.

Sister Rosalie Lazarus married the non-Jewish customs assistant Anton Julius Henry Köhn on 8 July 1911 in Hamburg.

Minna Lazarus, on the other hand, remained unmarried. Information about her life is scarce. On her Jewish religious tax (Kultussteuer) file card kept by the Jewish Community, a few residential addresses are noted, which suggest that for her – in contrast to her brother – the Jewish faith was an important part of her way of life. Apparently, Minna Lazarus felt quite at home in the Jewish Community. For instance, she lived in the Home for Jewish Girls and Women at Grindelberg 42 B/Rotherbaum and later, after the home had relocated, at Innocentiastrasse 21/Harvestehude. This institution had developed into a shelter for older, unemployed, and invalid women.

Probably for an interim, unmarried Minna lived as a subtenant at Rappstrasse 13 in the Rotherbaum quarter, residing in the apartment of Heimann Horwitz, who ran a kosher butcher’s shop. (A Stolperstein commemorating Heimann Horwitz is located in front of the house entrance).

Minna apparently had a special and close relationship with the Horwitz family. The Horwitz’ grandson, Mark Lissauer (born as Hermann Lissauer on 18 Mar. 1923), who survived Bergen-Belsen and later became an Australian citizen, provides in his English-language memoir, A 20th Century Jewish Life. A Survivor from Hamburg, a first hint about a special talent of Minna Lazarus. He reports in his book, "Kosher slaughtering was forbidden around 1935. Because of this, he (grandfather Heimann Horwitz) had to close his butcher’s shop (at Rappstrasse 13). Grandpa Heimann Horwitz and Grandma Johanna Horwitz moved to Schlüterstrasse, where they rented an apartment in which they provided a room for the poet ("poetess”) Minna Lazarus. Minna composed festive songs for numerous family celebrations, including the seventieth birthday in 1936. It was a wonderful event at my grandparents’ home on Schlüterstrasse.”

It is not known what Minna’s profession was. According to the entry on the Jewish religious tax card, she was a pensioner. Based on a letter from the Jewish Religious Association (Jüdischer Religionsverband) of Hamburg dated 9 Feb. 1940, Minna received a monthly accident benefit amounting to 104 RM (reichsmark) from the Berufsgenossenschaft für den Einzelhandel, Reichsunfallversicherung (Trade Association of the Retail Trade, the Reich Accident Insurance Fund) in Berlin. The type of insurance company suggests that Minna had previously worked as a sales representative.

Almost completely blind in the last years of her life, Minna was deported to Theresienstadt on 15 July 1942, at the age of 63, along with 925 fellow sufferers. The camp in occupied Czechoslovakia had been established in Nov. 1941 in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, in the former Austrian garrison town of Theresienstadt (Czech name Terezin).

Before Minna was deported, she lived in the duplex at Schäferkampsallee 25/27. Since the late 1930s, elderly and infirm members of the Jewish Community were increasingly housed in the rooms of this building complex. The accommodation in Eimsbüttel is considered Minna’s last Hamburg address. On the Jewish religious tax file card, the cynical note reads, "Retired, 15 July [19]42 by: Emigration.”

Rendering the city "free of Jews” – that was the goal of Hamburg’s Nazi rulers. Jews over the age of 65 (and infirm persons over 55), as well as decorated world war veterans, were initially deferred from transports to the concentration camps. However, in July 1942, this group of people, which included Minna, also received an order for a "transfer of residence.” Before that, the persons concerned were made to believe that a kind of humane "ghetto for the elderly” ("Altersgetto”) had been established in Theresienstadt for the elderly and invalids.

The sky was overcast on the day of the transport. Trucks stopped in front of the deportation assembly point at the Schanzenstrasse school to pick up the mostly elderly people. Presumably, at the Hannoversche Bahnhof train station they were crammed into cars of the German Reich Railroad.

After a long journey, they were unloaded in front of Theresienstadt one day later, on 16 July 1942, as one of the female deportees recalls. They had to walk the last three kilometers (nearly 2 miles) to Theresienstadt carrying their luggage because the camp did not yet have a rail connection. Who would have helped the visually impaired Minna on her way?

Minna survived the Theresienstadt camp for barely eight months. Surprisingly, there is further evidence of Minna’s poetic-musical vein from this time as well as an indication of her long-lasting courage to face life. Thus, the Theresienstadt survivor Dora Lehmann reports in her booklet Erinnerungen einer Altonaerin 1866–1946 ("Memories of an Altona resident 1866 – 1946”) in the following short passage:

"Frl. [Miss] Minna Lazarus had a violin, she had a lovely voice and sang charming Schnaderhüpfel (short, usually four-line song with humorous content) to the accompaniment of the violin, and each of the guests received a jocular address from her, teasing and whimsical. She had been blind for many years. Blind and yet not bent by fate. She was a niece of my father, Jakob Philipp Oppenheimer, and she felt an intimate connection with me.”

Unfortunately, no songs or poems by Minna Lazarus have survived.

She died in the ghetto on 13 Mar. 1943.

Details about the fate of Minna Lazarus’ siblings:
Leopold Lazarus (born on 27 July 1871) married Anna Catharina Margaretha Meier on 7 May 1898. He passed away on 21 Dec. 1939 in Hamburg.

Rosalie Lazarus (born on 11 July 1880) married Anton Julius Henry Köhn on 8 July 1911. Passing away on 2 June 1927, she was buried in the Ohlsdorf Jewish Cemetery.

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

Stand: May 2021
© Carsten Voigt

Quellen: StaH, 1; 2; 3; 4, 5; 7; 8; 332-5_1937/1878; 332-5_5161/1878; 332-5_1884/1880; 332-5_3278/1880; 332-5 _3172/1911; 332-5_413/1911; 332-5_926/1927; 332-5_238/1927; 332-5_6412/1898; 332-5_241/1898; 332-5_722571939; 332-5_1399/1939; Sterbeurkunde Sonderstandesamt Arolsen I, Nr. 921/1956; Gestapo-Transportliste Hamburg - Theresienstadt, Transport VI/1, ITS Archives, Bad Arolsen; Einträge im "Ahnenpaß" Familie Lazarus; Hamburger Adressbücher; Mark Lissauer: "A 20th Century Jewish Life. A Survivor from Hamburg. Makor at Lamm Jewish Library of Australia, Caulfield South, Victoria, Australia 2013, Seite 43; Dora Lehmann: Erinnerungen einer Altonaerin 1866-1946, Hrsg. vom Joseph Carlebach Institut, Hamburg 1998, S. 118; Beate Meyer (Hrsg.): Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der Hamburger Juden 1933-1945. Geschichte. Zeugnis. Erinnerung, Hamburg 2006; Anna Hajkovà: Ältere Deutsche Jüdinnen und Juden im Ghetto Theresienstadt, in: Beate Meyer (Hrsg.): Deutsche Jüdinnen und Juden in Ghettos und Lagern (1941-1945). Lodz. Chelmo. Minsk. Riga. Auschwitz. Theresienstadt, Hamburg/Berlin 2017; Wilhelm Mosel: Wegweiser zu den ehemaligen jüdischen Stätten in den Stadtteilen Eimsbüttel / Rotherbaum (I), Deutsch-Jüdische Gesellschaft Hamburg (Hrsg.) Hamburg 1985. Hamburger Morgenpost Online: https://www.mopo.de/hamburg/historisch/von-altona-nach-theresienstadt-auf-diesem-schulhof-begann-die-reise-ohne-wiederkehr-32854538; https://de.wikipedia.org; https://www.ancestry.de.
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