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Irma Holländer (née Lagus) * 1897

Goernestraße 10 (Hamburg-Nord, Eppendorf)

1941 Lodz
1942 ermordet in Chelmno

further stumbling stones in Goernestraße 10:
Berta Bernhardt

Irma Auguste Holländer, née Lagus, born on 26 Mar. 1897 in Hamburg, deported on 25 Oct. 1941 to Lodz, deported further to Chelmno on 10 May 1942

Goernestrasse 10

Irma Holländer was the daughter of the Jewish couple Friedrich Lagus (born on 6 Jan. 1870 in Carolinenthal near Prague) and Ida Lagus, née Nelky (born on 31 Oct. 1875 in Hamburg).

Friedrich Lagus had initially been a wine merchant, then a cigar wholesaler in Hamburg (Heinrich Wiesner & Co., Hohe Bleichen 8–10, subsequently, Hegestieg 14). In addition, he owned a number of tobacconist’s stores in the city and other towns. We know nothing about Irma Holländer’s childhood and youth or her education. In 1924, she married Max Holländer. In documents dating from the 1930s, she is described as divorced, a salaried employee, but also as a teacher of arts and crafts. At the time, she lived with her parents in their house at Hegestieg 14, a five-story building featuring shops, offices, and apartments. Friedrich Lagus sold the house, which generated considerable revenues in rent, in Dec. 1938, i.e., immediately following the November Pogrom of 9 Nov. 1938, for 110,000 RM (reichsmark), to the Hamburg "Aryan” Julius Pemöller, in order to be able to finance the family’s emigration.

In May 1939, Irma’s parents as well as brother Edgar Lagus and his wife Gerda with their small child emigrated to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

After paying all dues, compulsory contributions, and special taxes, the sum remaining from the sale was 14,000 RM. The Hamburg Chief Finance Administrator’s Office (Oberfinanzpräsidium) acted the generous part and permitted Friedrich Lagus to give his daughter, who had remained on Hamburg, 12,000 RM as a present. However, the gift of money was immediately put under "security order” ("Sicherungsanordnung”), and Irma was allowed to withdraw 400 RM a month for rent and to cover her livelihood, etc. Apart from that, she seems to have been destitute and without any income. She could no longer stay at Hegestieg 14. She moved to Goernestrasse 10, on the second floor, as a subtenant of the Jewish woman Berta Bernhardt (born in 1884), née Katz, a widowed teacher.

Why Irma did not leave Germany together with her family we do not know. She seems to have planned her emigration though, for in letters to the finance authority dating from 1939/40, she pointed to foreign language courses that she was attending in preparation of emigration, as well as to classes on producing artificial flowers that she gave free of charge in order to practice for her future gainful employment abroad.

On 25 Oct. 1941, Irma Holländer was deported to the Lodz Ghetto, as was her landlady and older friend Berta Bernhardt. Probably, both were picked up from their apartment only shortly before the train departed (10:10 a.m., from Hannoverscher Bahnhof in Hamburg), for they were named as "replacement persons” on the deportation list.

Initially, on 1 Nov. 1941, Irma was quartered with 12 other persons in two rooms with a kitchen in apartment no. 3/5 at Blattbinderstrasse 7a. On the "registration” form of the "Eldest of the Jews in Litzmannstadt” ("Ältester der Juden in Litzmannstadt”), the occupation indicated is "teacher for arts and crafts work.” On 10 Mar. 1942, she was relocated to Hausiererstrasse 3, apartment no. 11.

On 3 May, she received the "departure order” ("Ausreisebefehl”) III 497, i.e., her transfer to the Chelmno extermination camp. She asked the "resettlement commission” ("Aussiedlungskommission”) "humbly, … to deign to let me stay here,” since she was "urgently needed as a special laborer” in the ghetto’s paper organizational unit (Papier-Ressort). With her letter, she enclosed a certification of the organizational unit that she would be "employed here before long … as an expert on arts and crafts articles made of paper.” Before long! That qualification may have sufficed for the "expulsion commission” ("Ausweisungskommission”) to stamp Irma Holländer’s petition with the note ODMOWA – refused!

The "deregistration form” ("Abmeldeformular”) reads: The above mentioned person left the apartment on 10 May 1942. "Reason: expelled.” The blank behind the heading "new address” was left empty.

On 10 May 1942, transport no. 7 had departed Lodz for Chelmno, toward immediate murder of the victims in gas vans.

Translator: Erwin Fink

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2016
© Johannes Grossmann

Quellen: 1; 2; 4; 8; StaH 351-11 AfW Abl.2008/1, 260397 Holländer, Irma; StaH 314-15 OFP, R 1938-2914; StaH 522-1 Jüd. Gemeinden, 992e2 Band 1; Archiwum Panstwowe, Lodz (Get­to-Archiv), Melderegister, Irma Holländer, PL-39-278-1011-16942 bis 16945; USHMM, RG 15083, M 299/906-907, Fritz Neubauer, Universität Bielefeld, E-Mail vom 2.6.2010.
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