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Anna Rosenbaum * 1893

Gustav-Leo-Straße 4 (Hamburg-Nord, Eppendorf)

1941 Lodz
1942 weiterdeportiert

further stumbling stones in Gustav-Leo-Straße 4:
Anna Schönfeld, Felix-Manfred Schönfeld

Anna (Aenne) Rosenbaum, born on 23 May 1893 in Hannover, deported on 25 Oct. 1941 to Lodz, deported further to Chelmno in April or May 1942

Gustav-Leo-Strasse 4

Anna Rosenbaum was born as the third of four children of the married couple Gustav and Fanny Rosenbaum, née Berju, in Hannover. The father came from the region around Seesen, an early location of the Jewish enlightenment in Lower Saxony. The older sister Gertrud (born in 1886) married the merchant Emil Ascher from Parchim. Her brother Otto (born in 1890) set himself up as a lawyer in Berlin. Like her younger sister Käthe (born in 1898), married name Mondschein, Anna remained in Hannover at first. From age ten onward, she received excellent training as a pianist. Her teacher, Mathilde Franke, had been educated by Sophie Menter, a student of Hans von Bülow and Franz von Liszt recognized across Europe. This field was Anna’s pride and joy. At the age of 17, she began giving private classes but she was soon employed by the Hannoveraner Bildungsanstalt, an educational institute for Jewish teachers whose assignment it was to provide children in the numerous Jewish rural communities with prerequisites for a religiously sound education. Eventually, the migration of many Jews to cities as well as the inflation forced the closure of this institution on 1 Apr. 1922.

The unmarried Anna Rosenbaum first went to stay with her brother in Berlin but soon afterward moved to Parchim in Mecklenburg, where she found a job as a cashier in the Hirsch Ascher Department Store, whose owner was her brother-in-law Emil.

Excesses against Jews – windows of the Ascher Department Store, too, were smashed in 1935 – prompted Anna to go to Wuppertal, from there to Hannover, and eventually to Hamburg in Aug. 1936. There, protected by a certain degree of anonymity, she probably hoped to find work, accommodation, and opportunities for emigration. She met up with the Parchim residents who had also arrived there, at Haynstrasse 5 on the fourth floor, a subsequent "Jews’ house” ("Judenhaus”), in the home of the Krebs family. The sisters appear to have spent considerable time together at this place. In early 1940, after the "Law on Tenancies with Jews” ("Gesetz über die Mietverhältnisse mit Juden”) had come into effect, Anna moved to Schlüterstrasse with Mrs. Selma Schümann, where she worked as a domestic help. In May, she went on to Oderfelder Strasse 42 on the fifth floor with the Arndt family and in August to Alte Rabenstrasse 9 with Ilse Lippstadt (see corresponding entry). Then, at the end of 1940, nearly half a year of relative calm began with the married couple Felix and Annie Schönfeld (see corresponding entry), when she moved in with them as a domestic help at Rehagen 4. "Room and board” was free, and she was paid 40 RM (reichsmark) in wages.

One might assume that Anna Rosenbaum fought her way through Hamburg life in this way because she was penniless. Far from the truth!

As late as Apr. 1938, she indicated assets amounting to 23,172 RM, at a time when reporting property had become mandatory for Jews. For this sum, she could have afforded a good apartment and an independent life in those days. In Nov. 1938, when she was forced to pay a "levy on Jewish assets” (Judenvermögensabgabe) after the November Pogrom, she still had a comfortable 18,835 RM at her disposal. By Feb. 1940, however, this sum had already dwindled to 10,049.50 RM, mainly due to state intervention.

On 8 Feb. 1940, she had to ask the foreign currency office to pay out her wages in cash. Apparently, a transfer had landed in the blocked account, inaccessible to her. From her money, she also had to support her parents, who had taken up residence in Hamburg as well. The mother died there already in 1940, the father on 14 Feb. 1941, at the age of 86.

The family of her sister Gertrud succeeded in emigrating to the USA. Sister Käthe Mondschein, on the other hand, was deported with her family from Hannover.

The year staying with the Schönfelds ended with the first Hamburg transport to Lodz on 25 Oct. 1941. There, Anna Rosenbaum was quartered with six persons in apartment no. 22 at Blattbindergasse 8/10, where she was allowed to remain for half a year. For some time, the people living in this shared accommodation included the married couples Gustav and Emilie as well as Iwan and Elfriede Rosenstein, other "Eppendorfers” (see corresponding entries).

The 50-year-old piano teacher, "useless” in the ghetto, was murdered in Chelmno using exhaust fumes from vehicles in the spring of 1942.

With respect to the financial circumstances, it is worth mentioning that the Eppendorf branch of Dresdner Bank had to transfer the remaining assets of 2,093 RM to the treasurer’s office with the Hamburg Chief Finance Administrator (Oberfinanzkasse) in Mar. 1942, as well as the very last rest of 116.68 RM at the end of the year, when Anna Rosenbaum was long dead.


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

Stand: October 2018
© Dietrich Rauchenberger

Quellen: 1; StaH 314-15 OFP, R 1940/75; StaH 351-11 AfW, 230593 Rosenbaum, Anna; Adressbuch der Stadt Parchim 1933; Kaelke, Wolfgang, Museum Parchim, Auskunft v. 4.5.2010; Schulze, Dr. Peter, Stadtarchiv Hannover, Auskunft v. 6.5.2010.
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