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Margarethe Silberstein * 1876

Bismarckstraße 67 (Eimsbüttel, Eimsbüttel)

HIER WOHNTE
MARGARETHE
SILBERSTEIN
JG. 1876
DEPORTIERT 1941
RIGA
ERMORDET

further stumbling stones in Bismarckstraße 67:
Irene Rosenberg, Joel Rosenberg, Manfred Rosenberg

Margarethe Silberstein, born on 15 Nov. 1876 in Posen (today Poznan in Poland), deported on 6 Dec. 1941 to Riga

Bismarckstrasse 67

The unmarried teacher Margarethe Silberstein was the daughter of Louis and Auguste Silberstein, née Sommerfeld. Her father had been a wine merchant in Posen, where the family lived at Neustädter Markt 10 in those days. Her sister Ella Silberstein (born on 26 Oct. 1875) remained unmarried as well, becoming a teacher and residing in Berlin-Charlottenburg at Mommsenstrasse 47. There were three other sisters: Selma Hoppe, née Silberstein (born on 28 Sept. 1874), Gertrud Keidanski, née Silberstein (born on 3 Dec. 1877), and Tekla Marta Levy, née Silberstein (born on 25 July 1880), who were married and survived in exile. All of the Silberstein daughters were born in Posen.

On 1 Apr. 1907, Margarethe Silberstein began teaching in the Hamburg school service. According to her own information, she was a resident of Hamburg starting in 1904 and based on the school board’s data, permanently employed as of 1 Oct. 1907. In Mar. 1908, she applied for Hamburg citizenship and this request was granted. Her annual salary at the time was 1,600 marks. She taught at the elementary school at Löwenstrasse 58, a girls’ school with an Oberbau (senior grades of elementary school). On 1 July 1934, she was retired, receiving a pension from the Hamburg school board. She belonged to the "Association of Hamburg Female Elementary School Teachers” ("Verein Hamburger Volksschullehrerinnen”). After her retirement, she taught private students. In the Hamburger Familienblatt, she placed ads, offering her services as a language teacher.

Margarethe Silberstein, who lived at Bethesdastrasse 36 in 1908, later resided at Bismarckstrasse 67 b on the second floor. The so-called "Hamburger Burg” ("Hamburg castle”) at Bismarckstrasse 63–67 was a residential home for unmarried female teachers, called "Schartekenburg” ("old hags’ castle”) in the vernacular. The building featured 66 apartments with two, three, or four rooms. Margarethe Silberstein occupied a two-room (one-bedroom) apartment. A niece later indicated that both aunts, Margarethe and Ella, had owned valuable, solid middle-class furnishings including period furniture, oriental rugs, Hutschenreuther chinaware, silverware, and everything expected of a middle-class household in those days. The furnishings had been acquired before the First World War, being gifts from their father. In addition, Margarethe Silberstein apparently owned a library containing valuable books.

Despite being already 65 years old and thus eligible according to the deportation guidelines for transport to Theresienstadt, Margarethe Silberstein was deported to Riga-Jungfernhof, where all traces of her disappear. Her sister Ella received the deportation order in Berlin on 10 July 1942, to Theresienstadt, from where she was transported to Treblinka on 19 September and murdered.


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

Stand: January 2019
© Susanne Lohmeyer

Quellen: 1; 5; StaH 332-5 Standesämter, 9658 + 1771/1905; StaH 332-7 Staatsangehörigkeitsaufsicht, B III + 93060; StaH 351-11 AfW, 151176; Hamburger Lehrerverzeichnis 1932/1933; Hamburger Familienblatt vom 21.10.1937; Sielke Salomon, Eimsbütteler Facetten, S. 26.
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