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Marion Lesheim * 1936

Grindelhof 83 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

HIER WOHNTE
MARION LESHEIM
JG. 1936
DEPORTIERT 1941
LODZ
ERMORDET 5.4.1942

further stumbling stones in Grindelhof 83:
Leopold Bielefeld, Erna Brociner, Valentina Brociner, Kurt Ehrenberg, Heinrich Kempler, Rosa Kempler, Herbert Lesheim, Bert(h)a Lesheim, Ruth Lesheim, Tana Lesheim, Mary Liebreich, Hugo Moses, Bertha Nürenberg

Herbert Lesheim, born on 9 Aug. 1904 in Neusalz/Oder (today Nowa Sol in Poland) in Lower Silesia, deported on 25 Oct. 1941 to Lodz, deported on 5 Apr. 1942 to the Kulmhof/Chelmno extermination camp and murdered

Bertha Lesheim, née Kruck (Kruk), born on 22 June 1901 in Felsberg near Kassel, deported on 25 Oct. 1941 to Lodz, deported on 5 Apr. 1942 to the Kulmhof/Chelmno extermination camp and murdered

Ruth Lesheim, born on 27 May 1930 in Hamburg, deported on 25 Oct. 1941 to Lodz, deported on 5 Apr. 1942 to the Kulmhof/Chelmno extermination camp and murdered

Marion Lesheim, born on 14 Oct. 1936 in Hamburg, deported on 25 Oct. 1941 to Lodz, deported on 5 Apr. 1942 to the Kulmhof/Chelmno extermination camp and murdered

Tana Lesheim, born on 12 July 1939 in Hamburg, deported on 25 Oct. 1941 to Lodz, deported on 5 Apr. 1942 to the Kulmhof/Chelmno extermination camp and murdered

Grindelhof 83

Bertha Kruk’s family lived in Felsberg at Obergasse 29. Her father Isaak Kruk, born on 3 July 1866 in Kolema, Galicia, and his wife Malchen Kruk, née Mansbach, born on 22 Apr. 1878 in Niedenstein, had another daughter, Minna Kruk, born on 12 Oct. 1907, and a son, Siegmund Kruk, born on 6 Feb. 1912, both in Felsberg.

Bertha Kruk moved from Felsberg to Hamburg in the 1920s. Her brother Siegmund moved from Felsberg to Frankfurt/Main in Sept. 1935. Her sister Minna also lived in Hamburg between 1931 and 1933 and worked there as a sales clerk. At that time, she lived at Brahmsallee 6, at Bornstrasse 25, and finally, at Rappstrasse 20 with her sister Bertha and her husband Herbert Lesheim, whom Bertha had married in Felsberg on 28 June 1929. In May 1933, Minna Kruk moved back from Hamburg to Felsberg and emigrated to the USA in Aug. 1938. Bertha and Herbert Lesheim continued to reside in Hamburg.

Bertha’s parents Isaak and Malchen Kruk moved from Felsberg to Kassel at the end of Jan. 1939. Malchen Kruk was deported to the Wartekuppe camp in Kassel-Niederzwehren on 15 Aug. 1940 and from there to Riga on 9 Dec. 1941.
Isaak Kruk did not appear on the deportation lists. The further course of life of Bertha Lesheim’s parents is not known – nor why Bertha told the authorities in Hamburg at the beginning of the 1930s that only her father was still alive.

Bertha’s husband Herbert Lesheim was born in Neusalz/Oder in the District of Freystadt in Lower Silesia as the son of Erich Lesheim and Rosa, née Baer. It seems that his parents were no longer alive by 1933. After their marriage, Bertha and Herbert Lesheim went to Hamburg, where their daughter Ruth was born on 27 May 1930. A short time later, the family relocated to Altona, moving into a cheaper apartment at Langenfelderstrasse 17. Herbert Lesheim had a younger brother, Alfred, born on 16 July 1906 also in Neusalz/Oder, and a sister, Else, born on 30 June 1907 in Beuthen/Silesia (today Bytom in Poland). Else Lesheim, married name Wolfsberg, who worked as a sales clerk, and her husband Bruno Wolfsberg, a merchant or commercial clerk, respectively, whom she married in Feb. 1936, also lived in Hamburg since 1933.

Else Wolfsberg and her husband Bruno were deported to Minsk on 8 Nov. 1941. For both, Stolpersteine have been laid in front of their residential building at Rutschbahn 22.

Herbert Lesheim’s brother Alfred, who was married to a non-Jewish woman, Luise (Anna), née Klein – their wedding took place on 22 Dec. 1928 in Hamburg – survived the Nazi era despite persecution and repression as a Jew and Social Democrat, respectively, as well as temporary imprisonment in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Alfred Lesheim then emigrated with his wife Luise and their son Hans-Joachim, born on 28 Mar. 1929 in Hamburg, to the USA.

It appears that Herbert Lesheim and his brother Alfred were running a coal business at Brüderstrasse 19 in Hamburg from 1930 onward. On the Jewish religious tax (Kultussteuer) file card, his profession was indicated as that of a merchant, later as that of a commercial clerk, as it was for his brother Alfred. In 1931, Herbert Lesheim was registered in the Hamburg directory as a coal merchant in Fettstrasse 19. At the beginning of May 1932, Herbert and Bertha Lesheim and their daughter Ruth moved again from Altona to Hamburg, to Grindelhof 83, house no. 22. At this time, Herbert Lesheim had been working as an independent trader for about two months. In Aug. 1932, he registered the business "trading in rags” ("Handel mit Lumpen”) with the Hamburg police authority and, according to his trade license, then operated a "peddler’s trade.” He sold, among other things, dry goods, household items, and toiletries. He sold his goods all over Hamburg without having a solid customer base. From this activity, he could not earn a living for himself and his family entirely or only partially due to insufficient yields. As in Altona, he therefore received weekly assistance payments from the Hamburg Welfare Authority due to destitution. In addition, he got non-cash benefits from the German-Israelitic Community – at the end of 1930, for example, "food worth 3 marks, in addition a loaf of bread, some fat, and half a liter of milk a day for the child;” subsequently, and until Jan. 1939, also monetary benefits. Bertha Lesheim, whose original trade was tailoring, which she no longer practiced though, worked for the Jewish Community at that time, doing sewing and mending work.

Only a few months later, Herbert and Bertha Lesheim moved out of the Grindelhof 83 apartment again – forced to do so "due to the unhealthy living conditions” there, as they told the welfare authorities. Bertha Lesheim’s sister Minna Kruk also temporarily moved into the Lesheims’ new apartment at Rappstrasse 20, where the Lesheims lived in a two-and-a-half-bedroom apartment, of which they sublet two rooms. In 1933, the family moved into an apartment at Kleiner Schäferkamp 16, house B. They are said to have occupied three small rooms, one of which was sublet for a while and then again from 1939. The Lesheims lived at Kleine Schäferkamp 16 until their deportation from Hamburg.

On 14 Oct. 1936, Herbert and Bertha’s second daughter Marion was born, on 12 July 1939, the youngest daughter Tana. According to the Jewish religious tax file card, Herbert Lesheim was unemployed at that time, but since Jan. 1936, he had been doing "compulsory labor” ("Pflichtarbeit”) in Waltershof five days a week. For health reasons – "as a result of rheumatism and associated disability” – he was temporarily forced to refrain from doing this work starting around Sept. 1936. Later he did "compulsory labor” or "auxiliary work,” respectively, in Tiefstack on three, then five days a week. From Aug. 1938 onward, he worked as a "public relief worker” ("Notstandsarbeiter”) in Buxtehude for the Peter Dammann Company, 1939 for the Müller und Sohn Company in Stade. During this time, he was able to visit his family in Hamburg only on Saturdays. From Mar. 1941 onward, Herbert Lesheim worked for the Hans Franck Company in Wandsbek.

Bertha, Herbert, Ruth, Marion, and Tana Lesheim were deported to the Litzmannstadt (Lodz) Ghetto on 25 Oct. 1941, where they were accommodated at Sulzfelder Strasse 45, apartment no. 6.

On 5 Apr. 1942 Bertha, Herbert, Ruth, Marion, and Tana Lesheim were deported to the Chelmno extermination camp and murdered there.

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

© Alexander Reinfeldt

Quellen: 1; 2; 4; 5; 8; 9; StaH 332-8, Meldewesen, K 4487; StaH, 351-11, Amt für Wiedergutmachung, 30001 und 31213; Synagogue Center Felsberg, Synagoge Center Felsberg (Hrsg.): Jüdisches Felsberg; Forschungsstelle für Zeitgeschichte in Hamburg, Archiv, 18-1 Notgemeinschaft der durch die Nürnberger Gesetze Betroffenen, Fragebögen Les-Lju, Bd. 28; StAH 332-5, Standesämter, Generalregister Heiraten; Hamburger Adressbücher; The 1939 German "Minority Census" Database, https://www.tracingthepast.org/index.php/minority-census/census-database (letzter Aufruf: 30.5.2016); Lodz Ghetto List, http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Poland/LodzGhetto.html; Published Lists of Survivors, in German-language newspaper Aufbau, Sept 1944–Sept 1946 ("Juden in Hamburg", Aufbau, 20 July 1945, S. 29), online: www.jewishgen.org/databases/holocaust/Aufbau.htm (letzter Aufruf: 30.5.2016); Sharit haPlatah, www.jewishgen.org/databases/holocaust/0103_Sharit-haPlatah.html (letzter Aufruf: 30.5.2016); SPD Landesorganisation Hamburg (Hrsg.): Für Freiheit; The Statue of Liberty – Ellis Island Foundation, www.jewishgen.org/databases/EIDB/elliswhite.html (letzter Aufruf: 30.5.2016).
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