Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Alice und Julius Reinmann 1926 in Mannheim
© Privat

Alice Reinmann (née Baer) * 1890

Fruchtallee 115 (Eimsbüttel, Eimsbüttel)

HIER WOHNTE
ALICE REINMANN
GEB. BAER
JG. 1890
DEPORTIERT 1941
LODZ
1942 CHELMNO
ERMORDET

further stumbling stones in Fruchtallee 115:
Horst Fröhlich, Oskar Helle, Julius Reinmann

Alice Reinmann, née Baer (also Bär), born 5.11.1890 in Walldorf/Baden, 25.10.1941 deported to Lodz, murdered in "Kulmhof”/Chelmno extermination camp 10.5.1942
Julius Reinmann, born 8.6.1877 in Mannheim, murdered 21.10.1940 in Dachau concentration camp

Fruchtallee 115

In the year 2008, Hagit Bergman, one of Alice and Julius Reinmann’s granddaughters in Tel Aviv, received a surprising telephone call. A man from Munich telephoned and claimed to be a relative of hers. While travelling in Israel, he had searched for his Jewish grandfather, Julius Reinmann, whom the family had believed to be missing, and had come across the children of Julius Reinmann’s daughter, Ruth. He and his two sisters were grandchildren of Julius Reinmann from an earlier relationship. Until then neither party had known about the other. Mutual visits followed, and in the summer of 2011 some of the "new” cousins came to Hamburg to search for traces of the family. Some of what is known about the life of Alice and Julius Reinmann is based on information and personal documents the grandchildren provided, which helped further research.

The father of Alice Reinmann, Eduard Bär (1862-1911), was registered as "isr. Merchant” in the Walldorf records (Walldorfer Familienbuch). In 1890 he married Regina Weil (born 1860) from Oberlustadt, who had lived in Walldorf, Heidelberger Straße 11, since 1887. This address remained the family’s residence until at least 1939. The couple had six daughters. Alice (or Alisa, as she is recorded in some documents), was followed by Emilie (born 1892), Bertha (born 1893), Nathalia (born 1894), Jenny (born 1896) and Erna (born 1898). Jenny died in 1915. Emilie later married Albert Vogel (born 1883 in Mainz). According to the "Jews registered living in Walldorf on January 1st 1933”, Emilie and Albert then lived with Alice’s mother, Regina Bär, and her sisters Erna and Nathalia in Heidelberger Str. 11. At that time 1.1% of the population of Walldorf was Jewish (53 people).

During the November pogrom in 1938 the interior of the Walldorf synagogue was destroyed. Mobs raided several houses and demolished them completely. The Jewish men, amongst them Emilie’s husband Albert Vogel, were arrested and deported to Dachau concentration camp near Munich. Albert Vogel was released on 6 December and subsequently tried to emigrate to Brazil with his wife. They probably failed because of money problems. That can be concluded from a letter Emilie "Sara” Vogel sent to the Walldorf municipal pay office in July 1939. She asked to be exempt from paying the citizens’ tax for 1938 because she had "neither income nor assets”. In 1935, 1936 and 1937 she had also been exempt. The address given in that letter is Heidelberger Str.11. Later the couple had to move to Hauptstraße 26, a so-called Jews` house (Judenhaus). Emilie Vogel and her husband were deported in one of the early deportations ordered by "Gauleiter” Robert Wagner and Josef Bürckel. 6500 Jews from the south west of Germany were sent to the south of France on 21 and 22 October 1940. Emilie and Albert Vogel were sent to the Gurs internment camp. From there they were transported to Auschwitz on 12 August 1942 to be murdered. At least five cousins of Alice Reinmann, the children of her father’s brother, Isidor Bär, were also murdered with their spouses. Emilie and Albert Vogel and others are commemorated by "Stolpersteine” in Walldorf.

Before her emigration, Alice’s sister Bertha had lived in Heidelberg as a housemaid. In May 1939 she was able to flee to Brazil, where she married in 1943. The second youngest of the sisters, Nathalia, also succeeded in emigrating to Brazil in 1939, together with her mother, Regina Bär, and her sister Erna. Regina Bär died in Brazil in 1950. Erna Bär had married a Julius Weidler in 1930. We do not know anything about his fate. Later she moved to Israel, where one of her daughters died; the other one lives in New York.

We do not know anything about the childhood, education or youth of Alice Reinmann. No school records have been preserved in Walldorf. In later documents her profession was stated as "housewife”. She was probably working with her mother in the family’s grocery shop. The shop was still listed in the name of "Eduard Bär widow” years after Eduard Baer had died, and not in the name of Regina, who had probably inherited the business.

How, where and when Alice Baer and Julius Reinmann met is unknown. Records show that Julius Reinmann never lived in Walldorf. He was the son of the trader and tobacco merchant Emanuel Reinmann, born in 1844 in Feudenheim, since 1910 part of Mannheim. His mother Anna, née Mann, was born in 1850 in Grünstadt, where the couple was married in 1876. Afterwards they lived in Mannheim. One year later Julius was born, and on 30 June 1882 the second son, Hugo, was born. Julius Reinmann attended secondary school (Oberrealschule) and subsequently joined his father’s business. In 1897/98 he served in infantry regiment 110 in Munich. In March 1900 he became father to a daughter in Mannheim; in 1903 a son was born. According to family lore, Julius Reinmann moved in at least temporarily with the mother of his children, a seamstress born in 1878 in Tuttlingen. It is no longer possible to establish why they did not marry. When the children were small she allegedly took them for regular visits to Julius’ parents. He did not recognize the children officially, but in 1918 their later stepfather gave them his family name. During the Nazi era the fact that nobody knew about their Jewish father proved fortunate - the children escaped possible persecution. For decades they believed that their father had emigrated to the USA from Hamburg. The son even travelled to Hamburg in 1938 to look for his father. As he did not find him the family assumed that he had succeeded in leaving the country. They did not have the slightest inkling of his new family, just as later the daughter of Alice and Julius Reinmann had no idea of the existence of her older half-brother and half-sister.

Julius Reinmann’s father Emmanuel died in 1926, his mother in 1929.

In 1938 Julius wrote that he had moved to Hamburg at the beginning of 1907 and become a quay and shipyard worker. He did military service during World War I. In 1919 he became a member of the Hamburg Jewish Congregation. His profession was then listed as that of merchant. In July 1920 Alice Baer and Julius Reinmann were married at the registry office in Walldorf. Julius’ father and Alice’s uncle, Isidor Bär, brother of her deceased father, served as witnesses. Two years later, in July 1922, their daughter Ruth Ellen was born. The father registered her birth at Hamburg registry office No.3A. The family’s address at the time was Mittelstraße 96 in the district of Hamm; the building was situated on what is today the corner of Carl-Petersen-Straße/Ohlendorffstraße. In the 1926 directory, Julius Reinmann is listed with a wholesale fruit business at Hammerhof 14. Like Mittelstraße 96, this building opposite Hammer Park does not exist anymore. Ruth later noted that the apartment in Hammer Hof had had four rooms, and the family had kept a permanent maid. The family moved to Grindelallee 6, probably at the beginning of the 1930s, and then to Fruchtallee 115, second floor. Here they would live together as a family for the last time. Ruth went to school at the Höhere Israelitische Töchterschule Carolinenstraße. Her father, who now managed a business dealing in artistic postcards, fell increasingly into financial difficulty. From 1935 he was unemployed and received welfare benefits. At that time it was impossible for an almost 60-year old Jewish man to find employment. In 1938 the family lived on 17.25 Reichsmark a week; in return Julius Reinmann was required to do compulsory work. He was assigned to earth-moving work in Waltershof. In addition, the Jewish Congregation paid a 20 Reichsmark monthly contribution towards their rent. Was Ruth already thinking about emigration even as a very young girl? A photo from 1 May 1936 shows her visiting the "Brüderhof” in Harksheide near Hamburg, a hachschara center of the Hechaluz. Also in 1936, when she was 14 years old, she travelled, apparently by herself, to France with a transit visa in her passport, probably to visit her uncle Hugo, her father’s brother. He had been living in Dettwiller/Alsace for a long time, where he had just acquired a haberdashery shop. We do not know if Ruth intended to travel further from there, or for what reason she had a transit visa stamped in her passport.

Ruth finished school at Easter 1938 and took a two-month preparatory course in agriculture. At the age of 16, she emigrated to the then British Mandatory Territory of Palestine in August 1938 with an Aliyat Hano’ar certificate. Aliyat Hano’ar placed children and young people, who were not included in the British immigration quota if they came without their families, in kibbutzim. For two years they were supposed to learn the language and work in agriculture there. Ruth was assigned to kibbutz Ein Harod, one of the first kibbutzim to join this scheme. At the beginning of the 1960s a granddaughter from Julius Reinmann’s first relationship would do voluntary service in the very same kibbutz. At the time of Ruth’s emigration, her father was in prison. Having been denounced, he was accused of attempted blackmail and attempted fraud in connection with "indecent pictures” and sent to prison. Ruth’s mother, who did not manage to flee, was left behind by herself and without any means of financial support. She had to give up the flat in Fruchtallee and the furniture was put into storage. In September 1938 she moved in with the Bein family, which lived in Eppendorfer Landstraße 64, as a maid in return for board and lodging. You can read about the fate of the Bein family in "Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Eppendorf und Hamburg-Hoheluft”. Alice Reinmann had neither income nor assets, according to her entry in the religious tax records (Kultussteuerkartei). In a letter she wrote to her daughter Ruth in January 1940 she says: "I was happy to read about your outing and in my imagination it is wonderful, and I wish I could see it myself one day, but I believe that will remain a wish.” She also writes about a telephone call she had made: "Mrs. Neugarten was so happy to receive news of her daughter, the family had not heard anything from their daughter since she left here in August [1939], although Mrs. N. had written several times through the Red Cross, the address was probably incorrect. Please tell Ruth she should reply to her very anxious mother immediately.” Obviously Ruth Reinmann and the aforementioned Ruth Neugarten knew each other from Hamburg and were in touch; perhaps they even lived in the same kibbutz. (See Familie Neugarten in: "Stolpersteine in Hamburg”, by Ulrike Sparr and Björn Eggert). As a caring mother she advised her daughter: "all my best my darling and do me a favour and don’t smoke too many cigarettes. You will damage your health.” Besides, she was worried about having to look for a new position, because "Dr [Bein] cannot keep his household going anymore, I cannot describe how hard it is for me to have to go elsewhere. I hope I will find something soon.” And, written in the margin of the four-page letter: "Many regards from Daddy will be back beginning of July.”

Ruth also corresponded with her uncle and his wife in Dettwiller. Hugo and Aline Reinmann (born in Dettwiller in 1880) did not have any children and took an interest in their niece’s life. In each of their letters they asked Ruth to write again soon. They were also in contact with the Walldorf relatives. One letter says: "What your poor grandmother has to go through in her old age like the [illegible] and every one. We are very, very sorry, but unfortunately there is nothing one can do.” Those lines probably refer to the following:

On 15 December 1938 Ruth’s grandmother "Frau Eduard Bär Witwe, Kolonialwaren in Walldorf, Heidelbergerstr. 11”, had received a letter from the District Office (Bezirksamt), department IV in Heidelberg. She had to wind up her business and close it down by 31 December. The letter says: "You have to wind it up yourself. Any items in store have to be offered for sale at the latest within one week to the District Retail Group (Bezirksfachgruppe) in Heidelberg. Only when they declare that it is impossible for them to store the items can they be sold elsewhere.” With that the family was robbed of its livelihood. Hugo and Aline Reinmann had also enquired whether it was possible to help Ruth’s parents and perhaps take them in with them in France, but "the entry and residence permit is granted only temporarily to farm workers”. Their own financial situation was not easy: "Here we have a harsh frost and a lot of snow; I can never go out on business. The farmers are holding onto their money because of high prices”, Ruth`s uncle wrote in December 1938. Nevertheless he tried to fulfil his niece’s wishes. In April 1939 he asked whether the parcel with white, and blue and white polka dotted material had arrived. "We are very surprised not to have received any news from you for some time”. The cards and letters always ended by wishing Ruth good health and hoping that she would be contented in her work and sending hearty kisses from her uncle and aunt.

According to the documents of the "Memorial de la Shoah”, Aline Reinmann, née Levy and her husband "Hugues” (Hugo) were of French nationality, which did not protect them. On 1 April 1944 they arrived at Drancy transition camp near Paris, having come from Nancy. The buildings were used for the internment of French Jews. From 1942 they were deported from there to the extermination camps. Hugo and Aline Reinmann arrived in Auschwitz Birkenau on 13 April 1944 in transport No. 71. They did not survive. Four months later, on 18 August 1944, Paris was liberated by the allied forces.

By this time Ruth’s parents were already dead. In 1939 Julius Reinmann had been transferred from the [Hamburg] concentration camp Fuhlsbüttel to the Bremen-Oslebshausen prison. In July 1940 he was not released, as his wife had expected, but taken into "protective custody” (Schutzhaft) by the Gestapo, and sent first to the concentration camp at Sachsenhausen and, in September 1940, to Dachau, where he died soon afterwards. Relatives were asked if they wanted the urn to be sent to them for a fee. If the relatives had no income the Jewish Congregation paid the fee. In memory of Julius Reinmann a tombstone was set in the Hamburg-Ohlsdorf Jewish Cemetery.

Alice Reinmann remained with Dr. Ernst Bein and his daughter Erika until she received an "Evacuation Order” for 25 October 1941. She was deported to the "Litzmannstadt/Lodz” ghetto and, on 9 November 1941, moved into Froschweg 14, "apartment” No.3. Some of the women she had to share with had also been transported from Hamburg. All were about the same age and had no family in the ghetto. Maria Eisenberg, Rosa Garcia, Rosa Rosenberg, Rosa Scheuer, Dorothea Seligmann and Alice Reinmann had to prepare for "resettlement”, as the transport into death was euphemistically called, on 10 May 1942. The women were murdered in the "Kulmhof”/Chelmno extermination camp, 70km away.

Ruth Reinmann stayed in Israel, trained as a nurse, married and had two daughters. She died in Tel Aviv in 1991 at the age of 68. Twenty years later her daughters Ada Cohen Sharon and Hagit Bergman visited the places which their mother had known as a child in Hamburg. For them a circle had closed.

© Sabine Brunotte

Quellen/Sources: 1; 2, 5, 8; HAB 1926, 1937; StaH Jüdische Gemeinden 992 e 1 Bd.1; StaH 332-8, Meldewesen A 51/1; StaH 213-11, 3239/40, StaH 213-11 3467/39; schriftliche Auskunft Gedenkstätte Dachau, E-Mail vom 14.7.2010; Klaus Ronellenfitsch, Walldorfer Familienbuch; schriftl. Auskunft Fritz Neubauer, E-Mails vom 12. und 13.9.2011; schriftl. Auskünfte der Enkelin H. B., E-Mails vom 13.11.2010, 3.1.2012, 14.1.2012, 2.6.2012; schriftliche Auskunft Dieter Herrmann, Walldorfer Heimatfreunde, vom 13.12.2011; Dieter Hermann, Geschichte und Schicksal der Walldorfer Juden; mündliche Auskunft Dieter Herrmann, Telefonat vom 15.2.2012; www.alemannia-judaica.de/walldorf_synagoge.htm, Zugriff vom 11.9.2011, schriftliche Auskunft der Enkelin G. Z. vom 9.1.2012; mündliche Auskunft G. Z., Telefonat vom 15.2.2012; schriftliche Auskunft Stadtarchiv Mannheim an G. Z. vom 23.1.2008; schriftliche Auskunft Stadtarchiv Mannheim, E-Mail vom 13.2.2012; www.bundesarchiv.de/gedenkbuch/directory, Zugriff vom 17.9.2011; www.alemannia-judaica.de/dettwiller_synagogue.htm, Zugriff vom 15.2.2012; www.fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dettwiller, Zugriff vom 15.2.2012; diverse persönliche Dokumente, zur Verfügung gestellt von der Familie; schriftliche Auskunft Memorial de la Shoah, E-Mail vom 23.2.2012; Stadt Walldorf, Archiv 21-044.45; http://memorialmuseums.eu/denkmaeler/ zu Durchgangslager Drancy, Zugriff vom 21.2.2012; www.answers.com zu Aliyat Hano`ar, Zugriff 7.3.2012; telefonische Auskunft Gedenkstätte Dachau vom 7.3.2012; schriftliche Auskunft Archiv und Museum Neustadt an der Weinstraße, E-Mail vom 7.3.2012; schriftliche Auskunft Dettwiller, E-Mail vom 10.3.2012.