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Henriette Meidner * 1858

Hegestraße 39 (Hamburg-Nord, Eppendorf)

1942 Theresienstadt
ermordet am 4.10.1942

further stumbling stones in Hegestraße 39:
Ernst Goldschmidt, Gertrud Ruppin, Julia Alice (Egele) Windmüller, Franz Wolff, Luise Wolff

Henriette Meidner, born on 7 Mar. 1858 in Berlin, deported on 15 July 1942 to Theresienstadt, died there on 4 Oct. 1942

Hegestrasse 39

The Berlin directory of 1858, Henriette’s year of birth, contains an entry for a certain D. Meidner, merchant and calico producer. Since her parents’ first names were David and Sophie (née Friedländer), one can assume that this was her father. Nothing else is known about the family.

Henriette – or Henny – as her Jewish religious tax (Kultussteuer) card indicates, moved to Hamburg by 1920 at the latest, for from that year onward, a membership card of the Hamburg Jewish Community was kept for her. In Nov. 1920, she joined the German-Israelitic Religious Community, declaring her resignation again five months later. The card indicated that she received a retirement pension. The woman, 62-years old when she joined, was a retired teacher. In the years 1924/25, 1927/28, and 1930 until 1933, one finds entries for her in the membership directory of the "Society of Friends of the Patriotic School and Education System” ("Gesellschaft der Freunde des Vaterländischen Schul- und Erziehungswesens”).

"Fräulein” ("Miss”) Meidner’s first address in Hamburg was at Bismarckstrasse 67b, and at least from 1930 until 1933 she lived in Fuhlsbüttel at Woermannsweg 11. Her next apartment (or her room, respectively) was located at Werderstrasse 7 "with Wehl” (see corresponding entry). On 1 Sept. 1939, her moving in "with Bandmann” at Haynstrasse 5 (see Elsa Schickler) was noted in the Jewish religious tax card file. Until 3 Sept. 1941, Henny resided at Beim Andreasbrunnen 7, and afterward the registration card file of the house at Hegestrasse 39 indicated her as residing in an apartment on the second floor as a subtenant together with Pauline Sternberg (see corresponding entry) and Ernst Goldschmidt (see corresponding entry). Her last address before the deportation to Theresienstadt was at Beneckestrasse 6, a "Jews’ house” ("Judenhaus”).

Henny Meidner must have been in a good state of health because the 84-year-old woman managed to live through the dreadful conditions in the ghetto for two and a half months. When she perished, Richard Meidner was entered as a relative in the death notice. We do not know whether the Berlin native (born on 28 Dec. 1875), 17 years her junior, was a cousin, nephew or possibly a brother with whom she had met up again there. Richard Meidner had arrived in Theresienstadt from Berlin on the transport on 27 Aug. 1942. On 28 Oct. 1944, at the age of just under 69, he was deported to Auschwitz and murdered.


Translator: Erwin Fink

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2017
© Sabine Brunotte

Quellen: 1; 3; 4; StaH 332-8 Meldewesen, 51 (Meidner, Henriette); StaH 522-1 Jüd. Gemeinden, 992e1 Band 6; AB 1933; www.bundesarchiv.de/gedenkbuch, Zugriff vom 2.7.2010; Hamburger Lehrerverzeichnis, Jahrgänge 1918/1919, 1920/21, 1927–30, 1930/31, 1931/32.
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