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Lieselotte Betty Isenberg * 1906

Esplanade 17 (Hamburg-Mitte, Neustadt)

HIER WOHNTE
LIESELOTTE BETTY
ISENBERG
JG. 1906
GEDEMÜTIGT/ENTRECHTET
FLUCHT IN DEN TOD
10.7.1942

Lieselotte Betty Isenberg, born on 22 Dec. 1906 in Marburg, suicide on 10 July 1942 in Hamburg

Esplanade 17

On 10 July 1942 at about three o’clock in the morning, the 30th police station at Hohe Bleichen 19 was informed by telephone that a woman had committed suicide in the building at Esplanade 17. The police officers arriving thereupon found "the full Jewess Lieselotte Sara Isenberg” hanged with a clothesline from a heating pipe in the basement of the house. Placed on the bed in her room was a purse with 23.54 RM (reichsmark) as well as several stamps, food ration cards, and the "evacuation order” no. 360 from Gestapo headquarters in Hamburg.

Lieselotte Betty Isenberg, the oldest child of the Jewish couple Gerson Isenberg (born on 6 Apr. 1880) and Selma, née Hirsch (born on 25 Feb. 1881), was born on 22 Dec. 1906 in Marburg/Lahn in the Hessen administrative district. Her brother Hans followed on 4 May 1910. While her mother came from Eppingen near Heidelberg, her father was a native of Marburg. His parents Tobias and Rosa Isenberg, née Goldschmidt, had owned a butcher’s shop and a restaurant with guest rooms there at Steinweg 12 since 1888. When and why Lieselotte Isenberg left her home is not known.

In Sept. 1935, the Jewish Community in Hamburg created a Jewish religious tax (Kultussteuer) file card for her containing the following entry: "has no income or assets, is supported by acquaintances according to her own information.” Grindelhof 12 was indicated as her address, "salaried employee” as her occupation, but both details were later crossed out. It was not until 1940 that Lieselotte Isenberg was assessed for Jewish religious tax, albeit only to a minimum extent, and therefore, she must have been gainfully employed. From 1941 onward, it was noted that she worked in a household and received 40 RM per month.

Lieselotte Isenberg worked as a domestic servant for a widow by the name of Nolda (see Antonia Westberg), who was also the owner of the apartment house at Esplanade 17. Her daughter, the dentist Ottilie Nolda (born on 23 Apr. 1898) as well as two other doctors practiced there in the house (today it accommodates a "nightclub”).

Ottilie Nolda stated in the police report that she had discussed some things with her domestic help until about 2:30 a.m. because of her imminent "evacuation.” Lieselotte Isenberg then went to her room in the basement of the house to get a questionnaire that she had to fill out. Since she did not return after some time, she followed her into the basement and found Lieselotte Isenberg hanged there. "I assume Miss Isenberg took her own life because she was scheduled for evacuation. She had already received an evacuation order once before in 1941 and had attempted to commit suicide for that reason.”

At that time, Lieselotte Isenberg had been scheduled for deportation to the "Litzmannstadt” (Lodz) Ghetto on 25 Oct. 1941. By then, she was already working in the Noldas’ household. She is said to have cut her wrists, but she was saved. Her name had been crossed off the deportation list. On the "evacuation order” that Lieselotte Isenberg received nine months later for 11 July 1942, it was officially stated that the transport was headed for an unknown destination. Like Lieselotte Isenberg, 22 of the people scheduled to be transported off chose suicide. The transport went to the Auschwitz extermination camp.

After the suicide of Lieselotte Isenberg, the authority of the Hamburg Chief Finance Administrator (Oberfinanzpräsident) / asset management office (Vermögensverwertungs- stelle) ordered her remaining property to be auctioned publicly on Nov. 1942: three suitcases, three handbags, a lady’s umbrella, three dresses, three skirts and blouses, six undergarments, a lady’s coat, two lady’s hats, underwear, gloves and shoes, bed linen, one tablecloth and blankets, two towels, napkins and her wallet generated proceeds of 288 RM.

Lieselotte’s mother Selma Isenberg probably learned of the suicide of her daughter. On 6 Sept. 1942, she was among the Marburg Jews who initially arrived from Kassel in the Theresienstadt Ghetto on a collective transport. Selma Isenberg was murdered in Auschwitz on 18 May 1944.

Gerson Isenberg, Lieselotte’s father, was arrested on 10 Nov. 1938, like many Jewish men, during the night of the November Pogrom of 1938 and taken from Marburg on 12 Nov. 1938 to the Buchenwald concentration camp, where he died only two days later. The cause of death was indicated as "heart attack.”

His son Hans emigrated to France at an early age and lived as a merchant in Toulouse. On 5/6 Aug. 1944, he was transported from Toulouse to the Buchenwald concentration camp. There he was first quartered under the prisoner category of "political Jewish crossbreed of the first degree” ("Politisch Mischling I Grades”) in Block 52 of the so-called "Small Camp.” On 14 Sept. 1944, he was transferred to the Plömnitz subcamp. Under code name "Leopard,” the prisoners had to carry out heavy concrete and hauling work in underground pits for armaments production. Hans Isenberg is said to have been among the prisoners liberated by American troops in Apr. 1945.

The couple Gerson and Selma Isenberg is commemorated by Stolpersteine at Marburger Steinweg 12.

Lieselotte Isenberg found her last resting place at the Jewish Cemetery on Ilandkoppel in Ohlsdorf. Iwan von der Walde, who also took his own life a month later, was commissioned by the Jewish Religious Organization (Jüdischer Religionsverband) to arrange her funeral (see Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Eppendorf und Hamburg-Hoheluft-Ost, vol. 2).

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

Stand: May 2020
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: 1; StaH 331-5 Unnatürliche Sterbefälle 3 Akte 1942/1636; StaH 214-1 OFP 367; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 1152 u 392/1942; Auskunft aus der Stiftung Gedenkstätten Buchenwald und Mittelbau-Dora von Stefanie Dellemann, E-Mail vom 24.8.2016; Wussow: Plömnitz (Leopard), in: Benz/Distel (Hrsg.): Ort, Band 3, S. 546–549; www.geschichtswerkstatt-marburg.de/projekte/isenb.php (Zugriff 19.3.2016); http://www.statistik-des-holocaust.de/list_ger_hhn_420907.html (Zugriff 19.3.2016); http://www.statistik-des-holocaust.de/Plaut1.jpg; http://www.statistik-des-holocaust.de/Plaut2.jpg (Zugriff 7.4.2016); http://totenbuch.buchenwald.de/names/details/person/434/ref/recherche (Zugriff 7.4.2016).
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