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Porträt Bernhard Rosenstein
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Bernhard Rosenstein * 1910

Heußweg 110 (Eimsbüttel, Eimsbüttel)

HIER WOHNTE
BERNHARD
ROSENSTEIN
JG. 1910
VERHAFTET
KZ FUHLSBÜTTEL
ERMORDET 23.4.1945
KZ NEUENGAMME

Bernhard Max Emil Rosenstein, born on 14.10.1910 in Hamburg, imprisoned as a "protective custody prisoner" in the Fuhlsbüttel police prison on 28.2.1945, murdered in Neuengamme concentration camp between 22 and 24.4.1945

Heußweg 110 (Eimsbüttel)

On the evening of April 20, 1945, with the British Army near Lauenburg on the Elbe River, 71 Gestapo "protective custody prisoners," 58 men and 13 women, were loaded onto trucks at the Fuhlsbüttel police prison, taken to Neuengamme concentration camp, and cruelly murdered in the camp's detention bunker during the nights of April 22-24: they were strangled, blown apart by hand grenades, beaten to death, and most of them were shot in the head one after the other.

All 71 persons had been on a list of "particularly dangerous persons" compiled by the Gestapo and the SS leadership of Wehrkreis X Waterkant. They were to be "liquidated without fail" as soon as Allied troops approached Hamburg. Among those killed were 37 Polish and Soviet forced laborers, of whom neither the names nor the reasons for their liquidation are known. Among the 34 victims known by name was Bernhard Max Emil Rosenstein.

As with several others who were eliminated in the massacre, it was not possible to find out beyond doubt, despite extensive research, what could have made Bernhard Rosenstein an "element to be eliminated at all costs" for the Gestapo and the SS.

Bernhard was born in Hamburg on October 14, 1910. His parents, the skilled bookbinder Max Rosenstein (April 23, 1872-Sept. 2, 1956), and Anna Auguste Emilie Rosenstein (January 15, 1877-April 28, 1955), née Jürs, were also from Hamburg. The father belonged to the Jewish community, the mother came from a Protestant family and was considered "Aryan" during the Nazi era. Both had contracted diphtheria as children and became deaf and dumb, but seem to have coped well with their impairment. Max Rosenstein was chairman of the Hamburg Association of the Deaf for a number of years.

Bernhard was the youngest of three children. Born before him were Walter (born April 18, 1899) and Olga (born May 31, 1901). All of them were baptized Protestant.

Financially it was always tight in the Rosenstein family, also due to the disabilities. In the twenties, Max Rosenstein, the father, was unemployed on several occasions, and the Jewish community waived a large part of the religious tax.

Nevertheless, both Walter and Bernhard did not immediately start earning money after elementary school, but went into apprenticeship.
With the rise to power of the National Socialists, the father lost his job as a bookbinder and became a worker at the cardboard shears in the cardboard factory Küstermann, at a lower wage and with the now increased social security contributions for Jews. The two sons supported their parents with monthly allowances. When Walter died of cancer in 1944, son-in-law Theo Gebert, the husband of daughter Olga, stepped in.

Like brother Walter, Bernhard learned the trade of merchant, in the Altona haberdashery store of "Gütermanns Nähseiden”. After a few years of working in the local business, he went on the road for the company as a sales representative. He enjoyed driving and eventually made a profession out of it. He became a motor vehicle driver and found employment with the Ludwig Pank cab and trucking company at Peuter Elbdeich 7 on Veddel. He worked here until his arrest on February 28, 1945.

In the letter from Bernhard's employer to the Hamburg Social Welfare Office dated August 30, 1951, it says: "I am in a position to give the best testimony to the driver Bernhard Rosenstein. The latter worked for me as a driver during the period indicated. His friendly manner also made him very popular with customers. His conduct in the company was impeccable. As the reason for his arrest, I can determine with all probability only his descent as a half-Jew ..."

Since March 3, 1936, Bernhard Rosenstein had been married to Ingeborg de Groot, born on Januar 16, 1914 in Hamburg, a skilled cardboard box gluer. According to Nazi racial ideology, she too was a so-called half-Jew. Her mother was the maid Bertha de Groot (born June 18, 1893 in Hamburg), a Jew of Dutch origin, living in Hamburg St. Pauli, Marktstraße 7. Ingeborg's father was the railroad worker Carl Sinn. Ingeborg had grown up with foster parents, the machine worker August Eduard Groth (born Sept. 8, 1886 in Altona), and his wife Martha Elise, née Meyer (born March 29, 1892 in Altona), who lived in Heußweg 90/the Eimsbüttel district. In 1922, the Groths were joined by a biological daughter, Edith.

After the marriage, Bernhard, who until then had lived with his parents at Mansteinstraße 29, 2nd floor, and Ingeborg took an apartment at Heußweg 110, 2nd floor right, facing the backyard. Bernhard was later arrested here on February 28, 1945.

We could not find more detailed information about the lives of the two until then. On January 6, 1937 the first of two sons was born, Hans-Jürgen. He was followed by Hans-Joachim on Dec. 9, 1939. Both live in Hamburg, but have only limited knowledge of their father's biography. At the time of the father's arrest, the older of them had just turned eight years old, the younger five.

Among the photographs of father and mother that they possess, one shows Bernhard Rosenstein in the dress uniform of a non-commissioned officer in the army. It is too blurry to determine any further details. On the back of the photo is noted by hand: "1940, Hindenburgkaserne Schwerin". More precise information about Bernhard's stay in the German Wehrmacht, perhaps for a limited time in the reserve army, could not be determined even through the Wehrmachtauskunftstelle (WAST) of the Federal Archives to date.

At least it is documented that in 1940 the Army Intelligence Detachment 12, the 14th Anti-Tank Company of the 89th Infantry Regiment and the assigned replacement and training battalions were stationed in the Schwerin barracks. In 1941, these units were regrouped and moved partly to the Eastern Front and partly to the Western Front. Bernhard's brother Walter is known to have been drafted for military service, but as a so-called half-Jew he was discharged again in 1941.

Also irritating are the entries in Bernhard's work book, which employees had to keep since 1935, and in his contribution register at the Reich’s Insurance (Reichsversicherungsanstalt für Angestellte, (RfA). According to these, he worked continuously as a commercial employee from October 1, 1933 to November 30, 1943, and then as a driver who was no longer permanently employed. This downgrade in status can probably be explained by the pressure of the racist Nazi policy on the employer at that time, Ludwig Pank, who was sympathetic to Bernhard, as the above-mentioned letter shows.

The two sons of Bernhard Rosenstein will always remember their father's arrest. On the afternoon of February 28, 1945, a Wednesday, they were playing in the hallway of their parents' apartment at Heußweg 110. It was already dawn; soon their father would be coming home from work in one of the company's delivery trucks. They would hear him drive into the yard behind the house to park the car there overnight as usual. But then the apartment doorbell rang, two men entered, black leather coats, black floppy hats, like something out of a picture book.

It was the Gestapo. They asked for Bernhard Rosenstein. Since he was not yet there, the men sent the family into the kitchen, leaving the door open. They took two chairs and sat down in the hallway, facing the kitchen and the apartment door. When Ingeborg Rosenstein heard a motor noise in the courtyard, she tried to get to the door of the balcony inconspicuously and perhaps give a warning sign. But one of the Gestapo jumped up, rushed over and hit her in the face with his fist. Hans-Joachim, the younger, can still see his mother bleeding from the mouth. The arrest was very quick. The father was hardly in the apartment when the arrest was announced to him. The bag with the thermos flask in it, which he had with him, was briefly inspected and passed on to the wife. Then the men pushed Bernhard Rosenstein out the door. There was no search of the apartment, no questioning. The Gestapo was obviously so sure of its case that evidence or statements were of no further interest. Wife and children were left paralyzed.

Why was Bernhard Rosenstein arrested, taken to the Fuhlsbüttel police prison as a so-called Gestapo protective prisoner, put on the liquidation list without trial, and murdered in the detention bunker of the Neuengamme concentration camp? What was so dangerous about him that he "absolutely had to be eliminated"?

After the end of the war, the relatives tried again and again to find an answer to these questions, in vain. Rosenstein had not belonged to any political organization, he was unknown in resistance circles, and the otherwise very well-informed Committee of Former Political Prisoners had never heard of him. Thus the assumption remains, which Rosenstein's employer Pank had also come to, that he had been a victim of anti-Semitism in the Hamburg Gestapo. Among the authors of the liquidation list was the criminal secretary Henry Helms (born 1902), a highly active member of the IVA1 "Communism" section and obsessed with hunting down anything that looked like opposition to the Nazi regime. In addition, his dogged pursuit of the Nazi regime is repeatedly attested. It was Helms who was responsible for the arrest and murder of the politically completely harmless "half-Jew" Senta Dohme (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de) and the "half-Jew" Heinrich Bachert (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de) www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de). In doing so, he exceeded the competencies of his field, but he obviously met with the approval of his superiors. Did they really see in surviving Jews or even only "half-Jews" a danger that had to be eliminated or did they simply take the opportunity to make a personal contribution to the "Final Solution"?

Bernhard Rosenstein's surviving dependents, his parents, his wife and above all his two children, had a very difficult time for years after his death, even after the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany, financially, psychologically, in terms of health and in terms of social advancement. Ingeborg Rosenstein, in her material need, moved household goods that seemed expendable to her, she suffered from depression and headaches. The children were malnourished, became lung-sick and were sent away several times. As they freely say today, the school years were anxiety and torment. They were failures, in the eyes of the teachers as well as in their self-assessment. They were the outsiders, also because of the family name and their origin, even after 1945.

Hans-Jürgen, the older one, enrolled in school at Easter 1943, had no official lessons from August 1943 to August 1945, like the other Hamburg pupils, but because of his Jewish ancestry he was excluded from both private lessons and Kinderlandverschickung. In March 1952 he was released from the 7th grade with his leaving certificate. Like his father, he became a driver and eventually made it to commercial clerk.

The younger Hans-Joachim, after his release from school at the age of 15 in January 1955, immediately signed on as a deck boy, endured beatings and harassment, then made his way ashore as a co-driver, tanker attendant apprentice, unskilled laborer, returned to seafaring and worked his way up to tourism manager on cruise ships. Finally, he left the ship for good, became self-employed and opened a cab business in Hamburg.

Translation by Beate Meyer
Stand: February 2022
© Johannes Grossmann

Quellen: StaH 351/11 (AfW)_2210 Bernhard Max Emil Rosenstein; _39800 Ingeborg Rosenstein; _35863 Erbengemeinschaft Rosenstein; _508887 Hans-Jürgen Rosenstein; _51372 Hans-Joachim Rosenstein; StaH 132-11_2848; StaH 213-11_2122/35; Standesämter Hamburg: Sta 20, Nr. 2342/1910 (Geburtsurkunde Bernhard R.); Sta 30, Nr. 216/1914 (Geburtsurkunde Ingeborg de Groot); Sta 20b, Nr.50/1936 (Heiratsurkunde); Sta Neuengamme, Nr. 35/8.6.1945 (Sterbeurkunde Bernhard R.); StaH 522-1, 992b Kultussteuerkarte der Deutsch-Israelitischen Gemeinde, Nr. 8897 Max Rosenstein; StaH 741-4, Straßenkartei der Hausmeldekartei, K 6163, K 2444; Adressbücher Hamburg 1925-1943;
Gespräche und E-Mail Korrespondenz mit Hans-Jürgen Rosenstein und Hans-Joachim Rosenstein, beide Hamburg, zwischen 11.4. und 20.11.2017; E-Mail von Mark Zaurov, Institut für Deutsche Gebärdensprache und Kommunikation Gehörloser, Hamburg, 16.6.2017; E-Mail von Sebastian Rosenau, Handelskammer Hamburg, 17.8.2017; E-Mail von Christian Suhr, Vomag- und Kraftfahrzeugarchiv, Reichenbach, 20.8.2017; E-Mail von Angelika Nawroth, Zentrum für Militärgeschichte und Sozialwissenschaften der Bundeswehr, Potsdam, 6.11.2017; E-Mail von Martin Spruijt, St-Pauli-Archiv, Hamburg, 7.11.2017; Herbert Diercks, Gedenkbuch "Kola-Fu"/Für die Opfer aus dem Konzentrationslager, Gestapo-Gefängnis und KZ-Außenlager Fuhlsbüttel, (Hrsg.) Gedenkstätte Neuengamme, Hamburg 1987; ders., Dokumentation Stadthaus. Die Hamburger Polizei im Nationalsozialismus, Hrsg. KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme, Hamburg 2012; Ursel Hochmuth/Gertrud Meyer, Streiflichter aus dem Hamburger Widerstand 1933–1945, München 1980; KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme, Totenbuch, Hrsg. Freundeskreis e.V., Hamburg 1967; Johannes Grossmann, Die letzten Toten von Neuengamme, Hamburger Abendblatt Magazin, Nr. 14/2015, www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de/ Dokumentationen; Beate Meyer, "Jüdische Mischlinge", Rassenpolitik und Verfolgungserfahrung 1933–1945, Hamburg 1999; dies., (zu Helms), "Goldfasane" und "Narzissen". Die NSDAP im ehemals "roten" Stadtteil Hamburg-Eimsbüttel, Hamburg 2002, S. 105–198; Curiohaus-Prozess, Verhandelt vor dem britischen Militärgericht in der Zeit vom 18. März bis zum 3.Mai 1946 gegen die Hauptverantwortlichen des KZ Neuengamme, (Hrsg.) Freundeskreis der Gedenkstätte Neuengamme e.V., Hamburg 1969, drei Bände; StaH 213-11_2694/56, Staatsanwaltschaft/ Landgericht/ Strafsachen gegen Henry Helms und Andere, 23 Bände, besonders 1 bis 5, 8, 9, 18, 21, 23 (Urteil). Siehe auf www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de auch die Biographien der ebenfalls im April 1945 in Neuengamme ermordeten Personen Heinrich Bachert, Erna Behling, Senta Dohme, Gerhard Dohme, Erika Etter, Ernst Fiering, Maria Fiering, Helene Heyckendorf, Rudolf Ladewig sen., Rudolf Ladewig jr., Annemarie Ladewig, Kurt Ledien, Hanne Mertens, Margarethe Mrosek, Franz Reetz, Elisabeth Rosenkranz, Heinrich Schröder, Margit Zinke, Paul Zinke.