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Herta Fabian (née Herz) * 1895

Parkallee 2 (Eimsbüttel, Harvestehude)

1941 Riga

further stumbling stones in Parkallee 2:
Lina Bernstein

Herta Fabian, née Herz, born on 17 Nov. 1895 in Hamburg, deported to Riga on 6 Dec. 1941, deported again on 19 July 1942

Parkallee 2

The Jewish religious tax (Kultussteuer) file card the Jewish Religious Organization (Jüdischer Religionsverband) notes for Herta Fabian "resigned on 6 Dec. 1941: OUTMIGRATION [ABWANDERUNG].”

The reality behind this formulation, however, involved nothing voluntary whatsoever, but rather forced deportation. The Nazis originally planned the date of departure for the fourth major deportation from northern Germany to be 4 Dec. 1941, when thousands of Jewish residents of northern Germany were to leave for Minsk. However, the departure and destination were changed, and Herta Fabian was deported from Hamburg to Riga from the Hannoversche Bahnhof train station on 6 Dec. 1941, along with 775 other persons from Hamburg, including the family of four of her brother Manfred Herz.
At the new destination, 4,000 Jews from the Riga Ghetto were murdered days before to make room for new arrivals. The killing operation had not yet been completed when the Hamburg transport arrived, so the Hamburg deportees had to walk to the Jungfernhof farming estate some 6 kilometers (nearly 4 miles) away at temperatures as low as -30 ºC. The buildings of this makeshift camp, a manor house, barns, small barracks, and livestock sheds were mostly dilapidated and not heatable. Many deportees died of hunger, cold, and untreated diseases in the first winter.

In Mar. 1942, about 1,700 Jews were selected under the pretext of being sent to the Dünamünde (Daugavgriva) camp to work in a fish factory, but in fact, they were shot and buried in mass graves in Bikernieki Forest, east of Riga. This operation was followed by further selections. According to the Memorial Book of the German Federal Archives, Herta Fabian was further deported from the Jungfernhof on 19 July 1942. We do not know the destination. After the end of the Nazi regime, she was declared dead.

Little information is available about Herta Fabian, née Herz: She was born on 17 Nov. 1895 in Hamburg. Her parents, Henry Herz and Helene, née Nathan, also came from Hamburg. The father, born on 13 July 1870, was an upholsterer by profession. After their wedding in 1895, her parents moved into an apartment at Durchschnitt 10.

Herta had three siblings: Manfred, born on 25 Nov. 1897; Walter, born on 19 May 1899; and Berta, born on 26 Oct. 1900. The family moved to Heinrich-Barth-Strasse 3 in 1903. The marriage of Herta’s parents, Helene and Henry, was not happy; they soon went their separate ways. In 1919, Herta’s mother took over the Park Hotel in Niendorf on the Baltic Sea to generate her own income.

Herta married Hans Fabian, born on 20 June 1893 in Berlin and Jewish as well. He was one of 12 siblings. During the First World War, he was drafted into the army despite his epilepsy. After being buried alive in France and his illness worsening, he was discharged from military service in 1916. He followed his older brother Martin to Hamburg and worked with him in his cigar wholesale business. Soon afterward, he acquired his own business license. He met Herta Herz in Hamburg and they married on 27 Mar. 1921.

Helene Herz left the Park Hotel to her son-in-law Hans Fabian. On 30 May 1921, he received the concession necessary for the management of the summer guesthouse. He managed the hotel together with the co-owner by the name of Weinberg as "the only Jewish hotel on the Bay of Lübeck,” as the advertisement stated.
The parents-in-law’s marriage was divorced in 1922 and Hans Fabian then lived with his wife Herta, her brother Manfred, and mother-in-law Helene at Kuhmühle 6 in Hamburg.
In 1924, Hans Fabian’s state of health deteriorated considerably. However, his early retirement was turned down and he remained the leaseholder of the Park Hotel until Sept. 1929.
The marriage of Hans and Herta Fabian also went through a crisis; the childless couple separated in 1932 and gave up the apartment at Kuhmühle 6.

Herta Fabian then moved to Bismarckstrasse 104 as a subtenant, then to house no. 106, and according to the Jewish religious tax card file, she joined the Jewish Community on 30 Oct. 1934. Hans Fabian found accommodation in Borgfelde. When he was no longer able to support himself independently, he was cared for in the Daniel Wormser House, an emigrant and retiree home for Jewish homeless people at Westerstrasse 27. After a one-year stay, Hans Fabian was committed to the municipal "Farmsen care home” ("Versorgungsheim Farmsen”) on 20 Jan. 1937.
On 17 May 1939, the marriage between Herta and Hans Fabian became legally divorced and about three months later, Herta moved to Alte Rabenstrasse 30. The living conditions for Jews deteriorated increasingly, and so she soon had to look for a new place to live; eventually, in 1939, she lived again as a subtenant at Parkallee 2. In 1940, Herta had a very low income and she was supported a little financially by relatives.

On 2 Feb. 1940, Hans Fabian was transferred to the Langenhorn "sanatorium and nursing home” (Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Langenhorn). From there, together with Herta’s brother Walter Herz (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de) and her sister Berta Herz (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de), he was transferred to the Brandenburg "euthanasia” killing center by a collective transport of Jewish patients with mental disabilities on 23 Sept. 1940 and murdered on the same day as part of the "euthanasia” measures designated as "Operation T4.”

Herta Fabian received the deportation notice on 6 Dec. 1941. She was transported to Riga together with her brother Manfred, his wife Rosalie and their children Ruth, born on 28 July 1931 and Herbert, born on 3 Dec. 1933.

Her mother, Helene Herz, was deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto on 15 July 1942 on the first "transport of old people” ("Alterstransport”) at the age of 72.

None of them survived.

Herta Fabian is commemorated by a Stolperstein at Parkallee 2, and there are further Stolpersteine for Hans Fabian, Helene Herz; Manfred, Rosalie, Ruth, and Herbert Herz; Walter and Bertha Herz; Marcus and Henriette Nathan; Lilly Nathan (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de).

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

Stand: July 2020
© Susan Johannsen

Quellen: StaH: 351-11_1645 (Helene Herz); Kultussteuerkarteien; www.statistik-des-holocaust.de, Deportationslisten; Ingo Wille: Transport in den Tod, Hamburg 2017, S. 161ff; Hamburger Gedenkbuch; Gedenkbuch des Bundesarchivs; www.geni.de; www.ancestry.de ; Hamburger Adressbücher; Hannoverscher-bahnhof.hamburg.de; www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de.