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Jenny Löwengard, 1939
© Privat

Jenny Löwengard (née Kanitz) * 1869

Heimhuder Straße 40 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

HIER WOHNTE
JENNY LÖWENGARD
GEB. KANITZ
JG. 1869
VOR DEPORTATION
FLUCHT IN DEN TOD
19.7.1942

further stumbling stones in Heimhuder Straße 40:
Bruno Spiro

Jenny Löwengard, geb. Kanitz, geb. am 12.10.1869 in Wien, Suizid am 19.7.1942 in Hamburg

Heimhuder Straße 40

Jenny Löwengard`s granddaughter, Ruth Maria (Mia) Lipski, geb. Künkel, in 2016 writes about her grandmother:
"I have sweet memories of Hamburg, where I spent several vacations with my grandmother, Jenny Löwengard, who had lived in Hamburg most of her life. She had married my grandfather Alfred Leopold Löwengard, a well-respected architect and business man, in 1894 in Austria. He died in 1923. They were of Jewish descend, but did not practice their religion. They had 4 children, who were all baptized Christian at birth, in order to "blend in" with the German culture, which they loved dearly. Their two sons, Manfred, who was imprisoned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp for four months, and Kurt, emigrated to England in early 1939. They wanted to take their mother with them. She refused. She felt culturally "German", and wanted to die in her "homeland". The eldest, Kurt Löwengard, was an artist, whose life and works was published in a book by Maike Bruhns in 1989: "Kurt Löwengard, ein vergessener Hamburger Maler". (S. www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de).

My mother Auguste, their oldest daughter, was married to my ("Aryan") father, Fritz Künkel, which made me "half Jewish", and safe from the Nazis. She died in 1932, before the Nazi regime. My father was close to the Quakers, who arranged for him lecture tours in Europe and the USA, which helped him to bring his family to the US. He sent us to the Quaker school Eerde (Netherlands) as a transition to studying in the US. That is where I made friends with Ursula Bein
(s. www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de). Jenny`s other daughter, Käthe, was married to an "Aryan", Gustav Witt, a rather well known musician (pianist and voice teacher) in Hamburg. They had one son and all survived the Nazi period without a problem.

My grandmother lived on Rehhagen 9 (now Gustav Leo Straße) when I visited her, which was around the corner of the studio of my uncle Kurt, and in walking distance of a beautiful park which she visited daily. When her grandson, Thomas Witt, who lived in Hamburg, was about a year old, he called her "Amo” instead of "Oma”. Since that is Latin for "I love”, my grandmother was delighted and wanted to keep that name; so she became our "Amo”. She was very intellectual, loved German literature, art, classical music, and wanted to be considered "German”. The following incident is deeply engraved in my memory: I visited her during my Easter vacation 1936
(I was ten), when we had an "Eintopfgericht Sunday”. That was a special day when all Germans were asked to cook their Sunday meal in one pot (a stew) to save money, and put the saved amount aside to be collected later on for the poor and unemployed people. She liked that idea very much and so we had our stew that Sunday. She showed me the money she had put aside and waited to have it collected. Later on we heard the Hitlerjugend boys ring the doorbells at the other two apartments on our floor, but they did not come to our door! She broke down in tears, the only time I ever saw her cry. I said: "but Amo, be glad, now you can use that money for something else”. She said: "No, Mia, it hurts, because they do not want my money, and I want to help the poor and hungry people. They are my people.” Now I also understand why she did not want to emigrate to England with her two sons. She wanted to die in "her” Germany! And she jumped into the river Alster in order to avoid being deported and die elsewhere. I am enclosing a picture of her I took on her balcony the last time I visited in spring of ’39, the last time I saw her.

Stand: November 2016
© Übersetzung aus dem Englischen und Bearbeitung Sabine Brunotte

Quellen: Schriftliche Auskünfte Ruth Maria Lipski, E-Mails vom 7.5.2016 und 31.10.2016; StaH Hamburg 332-5 9928; StaH 351-11 34326.