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Senta Gertrud Joseph * 1902

Pastorenstraße 7 (Hamburg-Mitte, Neustadt)

HIER WOHNTE
SENTA GERTRUD
JOSEPH
JG. 1902
DEPORTIERT 1943
THERESIENSTADT
1944 AUSCHWITZ
ERMORDET

Senta Gertrud Joseph, born on 14 Dec. 1902 Hamburg, deported on 23 June 1943 to Theresienstadt, deported further on 12 Oct. 1944 to Auschwitz

Pastorenstrasse 7 (Pastorenstrasse 23)

"I was born on 14 Dec. 1902 in Hamburg as the illegitimate child of Louis Fritz Heinrich Brammer, born on 13 June 1876 in Hamburg, and the unmarried Julia Joseph, born on 17 Mar. 1885 in Hamburg. My mother, who died on 1 Mar. 1939, was a full Jewess, where[as] my begetter is of pure Aryan descent. Since my mother went to sea and therefore resided in Hamburg only temporarily, I was left in the care of my maternal grandparents. My grandparents were by no means devout Jews, something revealed even by the fact that they let their children attend a Christian school. My grandparents, who lived in poor circumstances and were both gainfully employed despite having ten children, could not concern themselves with my upbringing in the long term, and handed me over to the Christian orphanage even before my school age. For reasons I do not know, however, after a certain time I was taken to a Jewish orphanage, which meant that I had to attend a Jewish school,” Senta Joseph declared in a letter to the Hamburg District Court (Amtsgericht) on 30 June 1941. She had made herself liable to prosecution because she had not applied in time for the prescribed "Jews’ identification card” ("Judenkennkarte”) and had not reported the compulsory additional first name of Sara to the responsible records office. The compulsory identification card for Jews had been introduced on 23 July 1938. The identity card, stamped with a large "J,” had to be presented of one’s own accord in applications or mentioned in correspondence. She was threatened with a fine or, in the worst case, imprisonment for the identity card not applied for in due time.

Senta Joseph concluded her letter by stating, "I was not aware that, as the daughter of my Aryan father, I had to apply for a Jewish identity card, since my father is of German-blooded descent.”

Senta’s father, the engineer Louis Brammer, had lived in Baltimore, USA, since 1910. Her mother Julia had been employed as a maid before the birth of her daughter. She also stated this occupation when her second child Paul Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph was born on 28 Aug. 1904.

Julia Joseph married the waiter Erich Ernst Alexander Sauer on 20 July 1911, when she still went to sea as a stewardess.

Senta spent the first years of her life with her Jewish grandparents at Neuer Steinweg 94. Grandfather Louis Joseph (born on 29 Apr. 1853, died on 20 Sept. 1936), a master shoemaker, was born in London, his wife Auguste, née Herzfeld (born on 4 Feb. 1855, died on 2 Aug. 1924), came from a merchant family based in the Mecklenburg town of Brüel. The grandparents had married on 21 Aug. 1876 in Altona (see Emma Schniek and Celine Wenkel).

Senta grew up in the Paulinenstift (a charitable foundation), in the Jewish orphanage for girls at Laufgraben 37. This circumstance probably led to her later being regarded as "Jewish.” After finishing school, Senta Joseph must have completed commercial training, as she worked as a typist or as a foreign correspondent. By her own account, she earned her own living since age 17.

Her half-brother Paul Joseph attended a training center in Ahlen near Hannover after his school days at the Talmud Tora School and then, like his mother Julia, he went to sea as a steward, eventually for the shipping company of Arnold Bernstein (born in 1888, died in 1971) on the steamer "Hohenstein,” because as a Jew, he was no longer allowed to sail on German ships. The "Hohenstein,” renamed "Tel Aviv” in 1935, transported Jewish emigrants from Trieste to Haifa. Paul Joseph seized this opportunity as well, emigrating with his non-Jewish wife Frieda, née Reins (born on 24 May 1901 in Wesermünde), to Palestine on 12 Feb. 1935.

Senta Joseph lived in Berlin for a while. She returned to Hamburg at the end of 1936 and shortly afterward moved in with her aunt Selma Meffert, née Joseph (born on 21 Aug. 1890), who had been married since 1918 to the non-Jewish typesetter Peter Meffert (born on 2 Aug. 1890 in Cologne). The Meffert couple had been living at Pastorenstrasse 23 since 1922, and they had no children of their own. Senta’s mother Julia, divorced name Sauer by then and married since Dec. 1932 in her second union with the confectioner and cook Ernst Kischko (born on 11 Feb. 1891), lived not far away at Wolfgangsweg 10. Later she moved to Raboisen 58. Julia Kischko died on 1 Mar. 1939 in the Marienkrankenhaus hospital due to the effects of a heart condition. Her grave is in the Jewish Cemetery on Ilandkoppel in Ohlsdorf.

Senta Joseph was sentenced to a relatively small fine of 32.50 RM (reichsmark) for failing to apply for an identity card in due time. Her application to the "Reich Genealogical Office” ("Reichssippenamt”) in Berlin to exempt her from the "Jews’ identification card” was rejected. Because of her education in Jewish institutions and her membership in the Jewish Community of Berlin, she was classified as a "Jewess by definition” ("Geltungsjüdin”) (this group was deferred from deportations to the ghettos in the East until 1943).

After the heavy air raids on Hamburg during "Operation Gomorrah,” Peter Meffert, as the husband of a Jewish woman, was enlisted by the building authorities to perform clearing work. In July 1943, the couple was bombed out on Pastorenstrasse. Peter Meffert stated in his application for restitution that his niece Senta had already been picked up from the apartment on Pastorenstrasse on 23 June 1943. She arrived in Theresienstadt on a transport comprised of another 107 people to this "model ghetto” ("Vorzeigegetto”) or "ghetto for the elderly” ("Altersgetto”). In addition to unmarried "crossbreeds” ("Mischlinge”) such as Senta, persons over 65 years of age were selected for this "evacuation,” men who had received decorations in the First World War, and spouses whose non-Jewish "mixed marriages” ("Mischehen”) had been dissolved. However, this did not mean that the living conditions there were better than in other ghettos or concentration camps. For Senta Joseph, Theresienstadt meant only one stop on the further transport to the Auschwitz extermination camp on 12 Oct. 1944.

Selma Meffert experienced the end of the war protected by her "mixed marriage,” but she died as early as 1949 in Hamburg. Her nephew Paul Joseph returned from emigration to Hamburg in 1957.

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

Stand: May 2020
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: 1; 9; StaH 351-11 AfW Abl. 2008/1, 141202 Joseph, Senta; StaH 351-11 AfW 25153 (Joseph, Paul); StaH 351-14 AfW 1784 (Joseph, Paul); StaH 351-11 AfW 12079 (Meffert, Peter); StaH 213-11 Amtsgericht Hamburg Strafsachen 5657/41; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 13788 u 3002/1902; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 14232 u 2031/1904; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 13846 u 836/1932; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 7223 u 350/1939; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinde Nr. 992 e 2 Band 5; Gramenz/Ulmer: Juden, S. 114–121; Meyer: Verfolgung, S. 79–87.
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