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Henriette Neustadt (née Ezechel) * 1890

Werderstraße 43 (Eimsbüttel, Harvestehude)

HIER WOHNTE
HENRIETTE NEUSTADT
GEB. EZECHEL
JG. 1890
DEPORTIERT 1941
ERMORDET IN
RIGA

further stumbling stones in Werderstraße 43:
Gerhard Dohme, Senta Dohme, Gertrud Hahn, Max Hahn, Martha Helft, Bernhard Neustadt

Henriette Neustadt, née Ezechel, born on 15 June 1890 in Hamburg, deported to Riga on 6 Dec. 1941 and murdered there

Bernhard Neustadt, born on 30 Nov. 1928 in Hamburg, fled to the Netherlands in 1938, arrested in Amsterdam in 1943 and interned in Westerbork, deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto on 4 Sept. 1944 and from there to Auschwitz on 16 Oct. 1944 and murdered.

Werderstrasse 43

The elementary school student Bernhard Neustadt was the youngest child of Henriette and Leo Neustadt. Bernhard stopped attending the Talmud Tora School in 1938. Life for German Jews in the German Reich was no longer safe. His parents seized the opportunity to send their youngest on a children transport (Kindertransport) to the supposedly safe Netherlands.

However, let us look back at the life of the Neustadt family in the time before these developments: Bernhard’s mother Henriette Ezechel had grown up in Hamburg’s Grindel quarter together with her sister Josabeth, who was three years her senior. The parents Moritz (1854–1939) and Rieckchen (1861–1935), née Jacobson, were devout Jews. The father Moritz Ezechel worked as a commodities broker until shortly before his death. Henriette Ezechel meanwhile attended a secondary girls’ school and trained at Fröbel Seminar as a kindergarten teacher and after-school care center director. Whether she then actually practiced this profession is not known.

Probably through the Jewish Community, Henriette met her future husband Leo Neustadt (1874–1940). His parents Moses David Neustadt (1821–1903 in Hamburg) and Klara Gutel, née Goldstein (born in 1845 in Bad Kissingen, died in 1901 in Hamburg), lived on Grindelallee, where Leo grew up with three sisters and a brother. No traces have been found as to how the siblings spent their childhood, school, and adolescent years.

Leo Neustadt advanced to become an independent merchant and from 1901, he served as one of the co-founders and partners of Hodermann GmbH. This company operated several coffee houses and pastry shops throughout the city, for which Leo Neustadt later served as managing director.

Henriette Ezechel and Leo Neustadt were married in Hamburg on 5 Nov. 1911. Over the next few years, their children, Klara (1912–2003 in the USA), Max Moshe (1913–1986 in Israel), Rosy Josabeth (1916–1988 in Israel), Josef (1920–2011 in Israel) were born, and in 1928, Bernhard. Over the years, the family’s apartments in the Grindel quarter expanded until they moved into their own house on Werderstrasse in 1930.

Business flourished, and the family had a good income. Leo Neustadt’s brother Oscar also took the commercial path. From 1911 onward, he worked as a salaried employee at the Hodermann Company and from 1923 to 1932 as an authorized signatory. This work gave rise to the idea of leasing the café at Mönckebergstrasse 19, the shopping street par excellence at the time, together with his brother.

The rise to power of the Nazis in 1933 dramatically changed the situation of Jewish businessmen. This was immediately noticeable on 1 Apr. 1933, Boycott Day. Nazi personnel were posted in front of the stores and prevented customers from frequenting them. Later, when the "Aryanization” of Jewish businesses was on the rise, the coffee houses and pastry shops were often not "Aryanized” but instead some were liquidated or the "Aryan” co-owner took over the businesses. The Neustadt brothers’ café was also closed. Thus, two families lost their economic livelihood.

The family developed a plan to ensure survival and Henriette Neustadt put it into practice. On 25 May 1936, she officially registered a guesthouse in her home. Up to ten "boarders” could be accommodated, and they were also provided with food and drink. In addition, she employed an assistant. Thus, the married couple Gertrud and Max Hahn (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de) found accommodation in the guesthouse after their expulsion from Göttingen in mid-1940.

Meanwhile, Bernhard Neustadt completed his first day of school in 1935 at the Talmud Tora School on Grindelhof. Presumably, the boy was looking forward to finally learning to read, write, and do arithmetic. However, this period lasted only briefly. For on the night of 9–10 Nov. 1938, the synagogues burned, and the fire departments failed to put out the fires. Nazis and general mobs looted the stores and destroyed them; the owners were arrested and the police saw no reason to intervene. Bernhard Neustadt dropped out of school and his parents decided to send their ten-year-old son to the Netherlands on a children transport (Kindertransport) in Dec. 1938.

Before that, Bernhard’s older siblings had already left the German Reich. For Bernhard, safety in the Netherlands lasted only a short time. After the war began in early Sept. 1939, it took only eight months (14 May 1940) until the German Reich would occupy the Netherlands. We do not know to what extent mother and son were still able to maintain contact.

Another stroke of fate, after the passing of her parents in 1935/1939, hit Henriette Neustadt on 3 Apr. 1940 with the death of her husband Leo, who was laid to rest in the Ilandkoppel Jewish Cemetery.

Henriette Neustadt received the deportation order for 6 Dec. 1941 to Riga, where she was murdered at an unknown date.

Bernhard Neustadt was arrested in Amsterdam on 29 Sept. 1943 and deported to the Westerbork transit camp. A year later, on 4 Sept. 1944, he was sent on "transport” to Theresienstadt. From there, he was deported further to Auschwitz on 16 Oct. 1944.

In memory of Henriette and Bernhard Neustadt, two Stolpersteine were laid in front of their last shared home. In addition, the oldest daughter/sister Klara submitted Pages of Testimony for her mother and brother at the Yad Vashem memorial site.

What traces were found regarding the siblings and other relatives of Bernhard and Henriette Neustadt ?

The oldest, Klara Neustadt, fled to the USA in 1938. There she married Norbert Bachrach (born in Abterode/North Hessen–1968 in the USA) in 1942. His parents, Joseph (1858–1942 in Theresienstadt) and Minna (1870 in Nentershausen /Hessen–1942 in Hamburg) eventually lived in Harvestehude. Before her husband’s deportation to the "ghetto for the elderly” ("Altersgetto”) in Theresienstadt on 15 July 1942, Minna Bachrach died of kidney failure on 29 June. Her gravesite is located in the Ilandkoppel Jewish Cemetery. A Stolperstein was laid for Joseph Bachrach in front of the former retirement home at Sedanstrasse 23, where he last lived.

There were hardly any traces of Max Moshe Neustadt, who emigrated to Palestine as early as 1935, where he changed his last name to Noy. At an unknown date, he married Sara Sussel, née Steinhaus (1911 in Neu Sandez/ today Nowy Sacz/ Poland–1998 in Israel), who came from a family with many branches. The parents, Moshe Berish Frisch-Steinhaus (1885–1974) and Leni Libe Nechama, née Buchsbaum, (1884–1951), also fled to Palestine. They became grandparents four times over the years.

Rosy Josabeth Neustadt fled to Palestine in mid-1937. Presumably, she met her future husband there, Kurt Nachum Hofbauer (1900–1961 in Israel), who came from Eastern Europe. The wedding took place in 1942. Three years later, daughter Ruth Rivka was born and in 1950, Shmuel was born. Until retirement in 1979, Rosy worked as an assistant in a kindergarten. In 1961, she found a new job at a bank in Tel Aviv. Kurt Hofbauer’s parents, Alexander Shmuel (1876–1943 in Auschwitz) and Berta (1884–1943 in Auschwitz), née Gutkind, lived in Berlin and they were deported from there to Theresienstadt and on to Auschwitz.

Joseph Neustadt attended the Talmud Tora School until he was forced to leave it without a high school diploma; thus, he was denied the mathematics studies he had aspired to. He decided to live in Palestine henceforth. To this end, he completed the hachshara training first in Blankenese-Wilhelmshöhe, where young people were prepared for a life in a kibbutz. In Oct. 1938, he stayed in Halberstadt (today Saxony-Anhalt) for further training. There he was arrested by the Secret State Police (Gestapo) on the night of the pogroms on 9–10 Nov. 1938, taken to the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, and released after ten days on condition that he emigrate as soon as possible. He arrived in Palestine as early as 20 Mar. 1939. No traces have been found as to when he met his future wife Towa Naumburg (1927 in Treuchtlingen/Bavaria–2009 in Israel). Her parents Alfred (1890–1976) and Emilie, née Meyer (1893–1964), also fled. The couple had three children and lived in a kibbutz until their death.

Leo Neustadt’s sister Sophie (1871–1940 in Hamburg) married Julius Hähnlein (1880–1941 in Minsk, see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de), a native of Hall (also Schwäbisch Hall), in Hamburg in 1910. Their children Clara and Max were born in 1911 and 1915, respectively. The couple lived in Harvestehude. However, they were expelled from their home in 1939 and forced to move into the "Jews’ house” ("Judenhaus”) at Kielortallee 22 with the widow Dina Levy (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de). Sophie Hähnlein died as a result of a stroke in the Jewish Hospital on Johnsallee. Her gravesite is located in the Jewish Cemetery on Ilandkoppel.

The sisters Olga (1872–1943 in Sobibor) and Fanny Kelah Neustadt (1879–1943 in Auschwitz) married in 1905 and 1906, respectively, the brother couple Marcus Isaac (1873–1943 in Sobibor) and Siegfried Bloemendal (1880–1943 in Auschwitz) who came from Winschoten/Netherlands. Their sons Johan Erich (1910–1943 in Warsaw) and Frans Herbert (1911–1943 in Sobibor) were born in Winschoten. In 1938, the first-born married in his second marriage his cousin Clara Hähnlein (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de); Frans Herbert remained unmarried. In early July 1943, the Nazis deported the Bloemendal family to Sobibor, from where none returned. Johan Erich and Clara Bloemendal were deported to Auschwitz in early Sept. 1943 and murdered there.

Fanny and Siegfried Bloemendal lived in Ober-Ingelheim/Palatinate around 1907, where their son Manfred was born in 1907. Presumably, for professional reasons, the family moved to Bad Kissingen/Bavaria, where Josef was born in 1912. With the two sons and the daughters-in-law Margaretha Henriette Cohen (1915–1944 in Auschwitz) and Anna Hamburg (1913–1944 in Auschwitz), who were born in Arnhem/Netherlands and whose mother was a native of Hamburg, they emigrated in 1933/1934 to the Netherlands, considered safe at the time. Starting in Nov. 1942, the family had to "live” in the Westerbork camp. The Bloemendal family did not elude the fate of being deported to Auschwitz in early Sept. 1943. In memory of the Bloemendal family, committed citizens had Stolpersteine laid in Bad Kissingen.

Oscar Isaac Neustadt (1887–1961 in the USA) and the non-Jewish Sophie Richers (1895–1980 in the USA) were married in a civil ceremony in Hamburg at the end of Mar. 1924. Sophie Neustadt converted to Judaism. They celebrated the wedding according to Jewish rites in 1925 in the Neue Dammtor Synagoge. A few months later, the twins Günter Max and Ursula Klara were born on 19 June 1925. The children attended Jahnschule (today Ida-Ehre-Schule) on Bogenstrasse. They were not able to attend secondary schools. Günter and Ursula performed forced labor from 1943 onward. In the meantime, the family "lived” in the "Jews’ houses” ("Judenhäuser”) at Rutschbahn 25a and then at Rappstrasse 15.
Presumably, Sophie Neustadt was also pressured as an "Aryan” to separate from her husband; she did not.
From Rappstrasse, Ursula Neustadt was deported to Theresienstadt on 30 Jan. 1945. Her brother managed to flee shortly before his deportation. He hid until the end of the war with the help of his uncle Max (his mother’s brother) in the latter’s summerhouse in Bramfeld.

Oscar Neustadt was deported to Theresienstadt on 23 Feb. 1945. They survived and reunited with wife/mother Sophie a few weeks after the liberation in Hamburg. In 1949, Günter and Ursula Neustadt emigrated together to the U.S., their parents followed in 1951. Ursula died there in 1994, the date of her brother’s death is not known.

The widow Josabeth Heckscher (born in 1887 in Hamburg, see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de), née Ezechel, married the widower Felix Halberstadt (born in 1877 in Hamburg) in 1939. The couple last lived at Hallerstrasse 76, from where they were deported to Riga on 6 Dec. 1941; they did not return.

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

Stand: August 2021
© Sonja Zoder

Quellen: 1; 2; 4; 5; 7; 8; 9; StaH 213-13/7272 Landgericht Wiedergutmachung; StaH 314-15 (OFP) R1938/3253, R1940/0234; StaH 332-5/9020-1193/1887, 332-5/2228-2573/1890 Standesamt (Geburten); StaH 332-5/8675-7/1911 Standesamt (Heiraten); StaH 332-5/8167-187/1940 Standesamt (Sterbefälle); StaH 351-11(AfW) 624, 2521, 9516, 10054, 12451, 17894, 41459, 44122, 47576, 47577, 49114; Apel: In den Tod geschickt, Hamburg 2009, S. 109; Grolle, Igla: Stolpersteine in Hamburg -Grindel I-, Hamburg 2016, S. 179-182; Karin Guth: Bornstraße 22. Ein Erinnerungsbuch, Hamburg 2001, S. 101; Wilhelm Mosel: Wegweiser zu den ehemaligen jüdischen Stätten in Hamburg, Heft 3, Hamburg 1989, S.100; Jüdischer Friedhof Hamburg, Ilandkoppel Leo Neustadt Grab-Nr. F 269 sowie Rieckchen und Moritz Ezechel Grab-Nr. K1-17/ 18 am 2.8.2017; Ida-Ehre-Kulturverein: Steine des Anstoßes, An- und Innehalten, Hamburg 2012, S. 25; AK Erinnerung an der Ida-Ehre-Schule: Bd. 2, Die Jahn-Schule 1933-1945, Hamburg 2014, S. 53, 56; URL: www.agora.sub.uni-hamburg.de; www.geni.com; https://www.tracingthepast.org/name=neustadt; https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/archive/5107202/?p=1&s=bernhard%20neustadt&doc_id=5107202, www.joodsmonument.nl jeweils am 4.11.2020; Yad Vashem, Fotoarchiv-Signatur 15000/14235722 am 21.11.2017.
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