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Georg Rosenberg * 1886

Borgfelder Straße 24 (Hamburg-Mitte, Borgfelde)

HIER WOHNTE
GEORG ROSENBERG
JG. 1886
VERHAFTET 1938
SACHSENHAUSEN
DEPORTIERT 1943
ERMORDET IN
AUSCHWITZ

further stumbling stones in Borgfelder Straße 24:
Max Angres, Rosa Angres, Mathilde Dyhrenfurth, David Glücksohn, Siegfried Schuster, Hertha Schuster, Herbert Schuster

Georg Rosenberg, born on 9 June 1886 in Elmshorn, deported on 12 Feb. 1943 via Berlin to Auschwitz

Borgfelder Strasse 24

Georg Rosenberg was born on 9 June 1886 in Elmshorn at Kirchenstrasse 4. His parents were Alexander and Amalie Rosenberg, née Fürstenberg. They belonged to the Israelite Community. The residential building was located in the center of Elmshorn, a stone’s throw from St. Nikolai Church. On 1 Sept. 1883, Alexander Rosenberg had opened a stationary store by the market square in Elmshorn. It soon expanded to become a stationary wholesale company that he operated from Kirchenstrasse 4.

The grandmother of Jürgen Wohlenberg, the co-author of this article, worked as a maid for the Rosenberg family from 1 Nov. 1891 until 30 Apr. 1902. Upon getting married, she received from the Rosenbergs a complete trousseau as a gift. Alexander Rosenberg was a citizen of the City of Elmshorn and a respected member of the Israelite Community. He was in the Elmshorn Men’s Gymnastics Club, which he had to leave in 1933 because he belonged to the Jewish community.

On 16 Aug. 1889, the Rosenbergs had a second son, Friedrich, called Fritz. Both boys attended the local high school, the Bismarckschule. On 8 June 1909, Georg married Gerda Mendel, the daughter of a much-respected Elmshorn Jewish family. Two children were born to them, Günther on 1 Nov. 1910 and Edel Ellen on 28 Dec. 1912. In 1906, Georg already worked as a merchant in his father’s business. Perhaps this was one reason for his brother Friedrich to emigrate to the USA aboard the Graf Waldersee in 1913 in order to build a life for himself. At the time of his emigration on Ellis Island, he indicated the home of his cousin Jacob on Nassau Street in Manhattan as his residential address. (Friedrich passed away in San Antonio/Texas in Apr. 1975. All of our efforts to find any descendants in the USA were in vain.)

The marriage of Georg and Gerda Rosenberg did not last for long, ending in divorce on 25 Feb. 1920. Georg was pronounced guilty since the court considered a relationship with his subsequent second wife, Irma S., as grounds for a divorce. The fact that the divorce took place and that the grounds for divorce was a Christian woman probably constituted the cause for the suicide of Georg’s mother a short time afterward. His father died in the municipal retirement home on 12 Mar. 1927. The parents’ grave in the Elmshorn Jewish Cemetery exists to this day.

Divorced Gerda, henceforth entitled to go by the last name of Rosenberg-Mendel, moved with her children to Holstenstrasse 10 in Elmshorn, where she worked as a manicurist and pedicurist, while her son Günther went to sea as a mess steward. Gerda Rosenberg-Mendel intensified her studies in voice and music, giving singing lessons. Her life story has been published in the online-based Biographical Dictionary of Musicians Persecuted in the Nazi Period (Lexikon verfolgter Musiker und Musikerinnen der NS-Zeit) edited at the University of Hamburg (www.lexm.uni-hamburg.de).

In 1936, Günther Rosenberg moved to Hamburg, and his mother followed him in 1937. They lived together as subtenants with Lewie at Brahmsallee 24, with Schmidt at Hoheluftchaussee 36, and with Mendel, the sister and aunt, respectively, at Lenhartzstrasse 7, from where they emigrated. Having tried in vain to get a job for two years, Günther Rosenberg emigrated to Shanghai in March of that year. Gerda Rosenberg-Mendel was able to leave the country in June 1939 to join her daughter in Britain.

Georg and Irma S. were married on 8 Nov. 1921. A successful period followed for both of them, which did not last for long, however. They expanded the father’s business by purchasing, among other things, the building at Kirchenstrasse 10 as an addition. On 1 Sept. 1923, the Rosenberg Company celebrated its 40th anniversary. In the Elmshorner Zeitung, a lengthy article appeared on that date, highlighting the company’s generosity and patronage toward sports and culture in the City of Elmshorn. The paper referred to "practical patriotism.”

However, soon afterward things changed. Divorce, the beginning of hyperinflation in the early 1920s, and several tax violations eventually resulted in the stationary wholesale going bankrupt. Georg Rosenberg was sentenced to a two-month prison term for bankruptcy offense, which was converted into a suspended sentence, however. The property at Kirchenstrasse 4 was put up for compulsory auction in Apr. 1926. He was forced to sell other pieces of real estate, while he had already transferred others to his first wife and the two children prior to the bankruptcy.

After the loss of the residential building, the Rosenberg couple moved into a rented apartment at Peterstrase 28, only some 110 yards away. There and on the main shopping street, Königstrasse, Irma Rosenberg operated a wool and needlework shop. It was very well known, and the store on Königstrasse existed far into the 1970s. In the very end, the son from Irma Rosenberg’s first marriage managed the business.

Georg Rosenberg helped in his wife’s store, also working as a commercial agent for, among others, an Elmshorn-based margarine plant. For the couple, economic circumstances became much more difficult after the "seizure of power” ("Machtergreifung”) by the Nazis in 1933. In the course of the large-scale boycott campaign against Jewish businesses on 1 Apr. 1933, Irma Rosenberg’s store was beleaguered by SA posts and branded as a Jewish shop. Only the "voluntary” closure caused the SA mob to withdraw.

Just how difficult the situation had become for Jewish citizens is shown by the following incident, kept as a court record at the Schleswig-Holstein State Archive in Schleswig. In 1936, Georg Rosenberg had traveled as a commercial agent to Wyk auf Föhr (Wyk on the Island of Föhr), as he had done several times before. As usually, he stayed in the beach hotel operated by Mrs. P. In the early hours, an SA man, the son of the hotel owner, and another SA man beat him out of the hotel, chasing him halfway through the town.

After Georg Rosenberg had reported the two to police, they accused him of having cheated the local grocer. There was no proof of this, however. Georg Rosenberg was willing to drop the charges if the two perpetrators donated to the winter relief fund and covered his additional costs. The proceedings were suspended after the criminal record certificate arrived from Elmshorn. It began with the words, "The merchant Georg Rosenberg, residing in Elmshorn, at Peterstrasse 28 is a Jew. The reputation of Rosenberg is not a good one.” The letter ended with the following remarks: "As for the rest, one can say that in the case of Rosenberg, one is dealing with a typical Jew with a typically Jewish character and attitude.”

The criminal record certificate issued by the Elmshorn police also contained vague accusations of fraud leveled against Irma Rosenberg, accusations for which her husband was blamed, though. The marriage slipped into a crisis. We do not know whether this was related to the pressure of Nazi persecution or the fact that in July 1934, a man by the name of Karl S. moved into the house at Peterstrasse 28; at any rate, Irma Rosenberg separated from her husband. He sought help from the Jewish Community, finding shelter with a member of the Community, the family of the leather manufacturer Oppenheim on Flamweg. The son, Rudi Oppenheim, who fled Germany with his family in Feb. 1939 at the age of eleven, currently (2012) living in the USA, confirmed this on the occasion of visiting his hometown.

Georg Rosenberg’s daughter Edel Ellen was the first family member to go to Hamburg. She lived as a Haustochter [a live-in maid and nanny] with Hermine Danziger, née Rosenberg, on Behnstrasse. It was impossible to establish whether she was a relative. Edel Ellen was also the first family member to emigrate, already departing Germany in 1934 for London, where she subsequently built up a pedicure institute.

In Nov. 1938, Georg Rosenberg was among those arrested during the night of the November Pogrom. He was taken to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and released from detention on 23 December. When he returned to Elmshorn on 24 December, his wife Irma no longer let him set foot in the apartment, shared until then. The release was commonly tied to the condition that the detainee leave the territory of the German Reich by a certain deadline. No clues exist concerning any plans of Georg Rosenberg to emigrate.

The next sign of life surfaces in July 1939 in the shape of an article in the Elmshorner Nachrichten: "Person arrested on Monday, 24 July is a former merchant, the Jew Georg Rosenberg. Recently, he lived on support from the Jewish Community Assistance [jüdische Gemeinschaftshilfe], trying to seek help from the authorities in his alleged ‘plight.’ When arrested, he carried 452.16 reichsmark in cash on him. Rosenberg had hidden this sum in the lining of his right pant flap in the manner of Jewish foreign currency racketeering. The Gestapo will now deal with him once again.”

The Oppenheim family had left Elmshorn, fleeing to the USA via Asia, which meant that Georg Rosenberg had lost his shelter there. A short time later, in Aug. 1939, he moved to Hamburg, where none of the family members resided anymore. Apparently, from the anonymity of the big city, he hoped for his situation to become easier than in the narrowness of a small town. Only one year afterward, he registered with the Jewish Religious Organization (Jüdischer Religionsverband), becoming liable to pay dues starting in July 1940. He was not divorced yet and initially, he resided as a subtenant at Borgfelder Strasse 24 with Mathilde Dyhrenfurth.

He worked as a trader, though he only earned a modest income. Then, he came down with illness so serious that he was forced to give up his gainful employment while at the same time having to cover substantial doctor’s bills and expenses for drugs. Entirely destitute, he applied to the Jewish Religious Organization for deferment of the membership dues, which was granted to him. For 1941, he did not even receive a payment notice in the first place. When Mathilde Dyhrenfurth gave up the apartment, Georg Rosenberg moved to Eimsbütteler Chaussee 45 with Josef Mayer, who was already deported to Minsk with his family on 8 Nov. 1941, however.

After they had lived apart for eight years, Irma Rosenberg filed for divorce against her husband’s will. The decree of divorce does not reveal why she chose this point in time. Until then the union, though not "privileged,” had afforded a certain degree of protection from "transfer to the East into a Jews’ quarter,” as the grounds for the judgment read. On 5 June 1942, the marriage of Irma and Georg Rosenberg was divorced due to "irretrievable breakdown.” Irma Rosenberg resumed her maiden name, subsequently marrying Karl S.

In the course of the compulsory housing measures of the Gestapo, on 6 Oct. 1942 the Jewish Community quartered Georg Rosenberg at Beneckestrasse 2, its own community facilities, which by then served as a "Jews’ house” ("Judenhaus”). Meanwhile 56 years old, he was called upon for the transport "to the East.” This was a small transport comprised of 22 Hamburg Jews, with ten of them coming from Beneckestrasse 2 alone. They were six to 60 years old. Their number also included a staff member of the Jewish Community and his family, Martin Starke, who was the only one to survive this deportation. The Gestapo noted occupational designations for only three of them, including Georg Rosenberg as a "trader.” The transport departed Hamburg on 12 Feb. 1943, taking the route via Berlin to Auschwitz. It was not possible to establish a date for Georg Rosenberg’s murder in Auschwitz.

Georg Rosenberg was honored with a Stolperstein in Elmshorn at Kirchenstrasse 4, where he and his family had lived for more than 40 years.


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

Stand: October 2018
© Jürgen Wohlenberg und Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: 1; Stadtarchiv Elmshorn, Personenstandsregister; Amtsgericht Elmshorn, Grundbuchamt; Landesarchiv Schleswig-Holstein/Schleswig; ALGH 11 b R 286/41; Staatsarchiv Hamburg, 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden, 992 e 2 Band 5; 992 d 27; 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung, 8590; Archiv Auschwitz; Ellis Island, Einwanderungsunterlagen; Gedenkstätte und Museum Sachsenhausen; ITS Bad Arolsen; Kirschninck, H., Beiträge zur Elmshorner Geschichte, Band 9, Geschichte der Elmshorner Juden; Ancestry.com; Beate Meyer, "Jüdische Mischlinge". Rassenpolitik und Verfolgungserfahrung, Hamburg 1999, S. 77f.
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