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Elfriede Rosenstein (née Sondermann) * 1896

Schrammsweg 29 (Hamburg-Nord, Eppendorf)

1941 Lodz

further stumbling stones in Schrammsweg 29:
Annemarie Deutschländer, Arnold Deutschländer, Dora Deutschländer, Iwan Rosenstein

Iwan Rosenstein, born on 16 June 1894 in Hannover, deported on 25 Oct. 1941 to Lodz, deported further on 28 June 1944 to Chelmno
Elfriede Rosenstein, née Sondermann, born on 14 Dec. 1896 in Horn-Bad Meinberg, deported on 25 Oct. 1941 to Lodz, deported further on 28 June 1944 to Chelmno

Schrammsweg 29

Iwan Rosenstein was born in 1894 in Hannover, though he grew up in Neustadt/Rübenberge in an old-established family. The origins of the local Jewish Community dates back to the seventeenth century and the social standing of the Rosensteins was based on the fact that Iwan’s uncle Moritz had participated and been wounded in the German unification war (Franco-Prussian War) of 1870/71. At the age of 12, Iwan returned to Hannover for four years, probably as a commercial apprentice, though perhaps also to attend a secondary school.

In 1923, he married Elfriede Sondermann, whose father was a butcher in Horn near Detmold. They remained childless. Iwan was a livestock trader and one of the ten self-employed Jewish businesspeople in Neustadt. In 1933, 45 Jewish residents lived there, six of whom went by the name of Rosenstein. Half of their fellow townspeople had voted for the Nazis even by 1932, but probably it was only in the face of the Nazi "seizure of power” that Iwan Rosenstein decided in 1934 to become a member of the Synagogue Community (Synagogengemeinde).

The living and business circumstances reached a low point on 26 July 1935, when the mayor proclaimed that "German national comrades [Volksgenossen] who continued dealings with the Jews” would be excluded from municipal contracts. When windows at one of Iwan Rosenstein’s female relatives were smashed in Apr. 1936, this marked the signal to leave. Most Neustadt Jews chose one of the three following destinations: a foreign country, Hannover, or Hamburg. For instance, Iwan and Elfriede Rosenstein relocated to Haynstrasse 8 in Hamburg-Eppendorf. From there, they soon went on to move in with the married couple Gustav and Emilie Rosenstein, who were natives of Altona and resided at Hegestrasse 27.

It is not known whether any family relationship with them existed. Another relocation followed, to Schrammsweg, where today the Stolpersteine are located in front of house no. 29.

On the first Hamburg transport, they arrived from there in Litzmannstadt (Lodz) on 25 Oct. 1941. They were quartered on Blattbindergasse, where Anna Rosenbaum and Gustav Rosenstein with his wife had ended up (see corresponding entries).

Whereas many German Jews were murdered in Chelmno starting in May 1942, Iwan and Elfriede found jobs in the ghetto. He became an "L. S. Wart” (Luftschutzwart? – air raid warden?) in "Plant No. 68/75, Sorting and Utilization Shop for Scraps,” she a "corset sewing assistant” in "Plant 56, Corset and Brassiere Sewing.” This assignment extended their lives until 28 June 1944, when they were both taken to the Chelmno extermination camp. At that time, the Soviet Army, which could have liberated them, was only as far away as Hamburg was from Neustadt/Rübenberge.


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

Stand: October 2018
© Dietrich Rauchenberger

Quellen: 1; StaH 522-1 Jüd. Gemeinden, 992e2 Band 3; Archiwum Panstwowe, Lodz; Stadtarchiv Hannover, Auskunft Dr. Peter Schulz vom 6.5.2010; Standesamt Horn-Bad Meinberg, Geburtsregister Horn-Stadt; Brieden, "Das jüdische Gebetshaus", 2007; Comite zur Abwehr antisemitischer Angriffe in Berlin (Hrsg.), Die Juden als Soldaten, 1897, S. 58 und 94; Feuchert/Leibfried/Riecke (Hrsg.), Chronik, 2007; Löw, Juden, Arbeitsstelle für Holocaustliteratur (Hrsg.), 2006.
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