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Bernhard Weinberg * 1872

Rothenbaumchaussee 73 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

1942 Theresienstadt
ermordet am 18.1.1943

further stumbling stones in Rothenbaumchaussee 73:
Hasja Arolowitsch, Agnes Offenstadt, Meta Vorreuter, Helene Weinheim, Henriette Weinheim

Bernhard Weinberg, b. 8.14.1872, deported on 7.15.1942 to Theresienstadt, murdered there on 1.18.1943

Rothenbaumchaussee 73

The engineer lived with his wife Friederike in Cuxhaven. Between 1923 and 1927, he was co-shareholder in a Cuxhaven shipyard, and after the transformation and renaming of this enterprise, the director of operations for the Franz Mützelfeldt Shipyard from 1928 to 1937.

According to the recollection of their emigrant nephew, the childless couple lived "very elegantly” in their own dwelling. Apparently, Bernhard W. was suddenly arrested in 1937 and lost his position on "racial grounds.” The 65 year-old pursued emigration and stored his household furnishings and transportable property with a forwarding agent. Yet the plans fell through for unknown reasons. The pair decided to leave Cuxhaven, perhaps to be able to lead a less noticeable life in the anonymity of the Hamburg metropolis. Thus, Bernhard W. sold his property and the couple moved in December 1940 to, again according to the nephew, a "very small dwelling” in Hamburg at Rothenbaumch. 73. Their assests were placed under a "security order."

Nevertheless, Bernhard W. did not complain: he wrote to his emigrant relatives in June 1941 about how well he and his wife felt in the house on Rothenbaumchaussee: "we ae enjoying splendid weather on our balcony, where in the morning and evening it is wonderfully cool. In the afternoons it is a bit warm, but our great umbrella, which we brought along, protects us from the glare of the sun.”

Friederike W. invited her friends for coffee on the balcony. The joy did not last long. On 16 April 1942, Bernhard W. informed the responsible service office of the Chief Financial Governor that he was living in a two-person household at the old people’s home of the Reich Association of Jews in Germany at Beneckestr. 6. This change of address had not, apparently, been noted by the Gestapo in its records, for the deportation list still bore the old Rothenbaumch. 73 address.

After Bernhard W., on 11 July 1942, signed away his total assets in "a purchase agreement” in exchange for accommodations in Theresienstadt, he was deported there together with his wife Friederike (b. 1878). They lived in L 425, one of the seediest buildings on the ghetto’s main street. The consequences of malnourishment, lack of heat, damp lodgings, and the lack of medical care apparently swiftly weakened Bernhard W.

He died on 18 January 1943; the cause recorded on the death certificate was "exhaustion.” His wife, on the other hand, survived, and was liberated in Theresienstadt. She died on 15 September 1946.


Translator: Richard Levy
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: May 2019
© Beate Meyer

Quellen: StaH, 522-1, Jüdische Gemeinden, 992b, Kultussteuerkartei der Deutsch-Israelitischen Gemeinde Hamburgs; ebd., 314-15 Oberfinanzpräsident, R 1940/487; 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden 992e; Nationalarchiv in Prag/Theresienstädter Initiative, Jüdische Matriken, Todesfallanzeigen Theresienstadt, Kart. 20; Theresienstädter Gedenkbuch; Amt f. Wiedergutmachung 1408 82; Hamburger jüdische Opfer des Nationalsozialismus. Gedenkbuch, Hamburg 1995.