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Ernst Oppenheimer
© Yad Vashem

Ernst Oppenheimer * 1897

Sierichstraße 58 (Hamburg-Nord, Winterhude)

1941 Minsk

further stumbling stones in Sierichstraße 58:
Alice Oppenheimer

Alice Oppenheimer, nee Oppenheim, born 18.3.1867 in Hamburg, deported on 15.7.1942 to Theresienstadt, where she died 3.9.1942
Ernst Oppenheimer, born 1.7.1897 in Hamburg, deported on 8.11.1941 to Minsk, date of death unknown.

Alice Oppenheim was born in 1867 in Hamburg as the daughter of the businessman Albert Süsskind Oppenheim. Her father had been enfranchised in Hamburg in 1865. Her mother, Lucia, nee Cohn (born 1846), came from Stuttgart. Three years later her sister Johanna was born. She married in 1898 Paul Rappolt (1863-1940) the junior director to the textile firm known as Rappolt & Söhne. The family Oppenheim, until the marriage of their younger daughter lived at 58 Heimhuderstraße in Hamburg-Rotherbaum from where they moved to 17 Heilwigstraße Hamburg-Harvestehude. Alice Oppenheim married around 1890 the Hamburg lawyer Dr. Philipp (known as Paul) Oppenheimer (1854–1937). According to a great-granddaughter this marriage gave issue to a daughter, (Olga), (born 1885) whose married name was Wolfers.

The son, Albert Oppenheimer, in 1973 in a letter to a Hamburg Senator, who has congratulated him on his 80th birthday, stated that his forebears including "descendants of the Hamburg painter Suhr who in the previous century were depicted by him on the Oppenheimer home at Neuer Wall." The Hamburg businessman Hirsch Berend Oppenheimer (1794–1870) in 1847, five years after the Hamburg Fire, had constructed an imposing five-story building at Neuer Wall, which area had been destroyed in the fire 1842. Above the two tall entrances were engraved in large letters H. B. Oppenheimer. The building consisted not only of the bank offices and an apartment but also a private synagogue. The administration of the "Oppenheim Trust” established in 1868 by Hirsch Berend Oppenheimer, which made available for needy Jewish families apartments, consisted at the beginning of the twentieth century the lawyers Dr. Ruben Leopold Oppenheimer (1837–1914) and Dr. Paul Oppenheimer (born 1854). Ruben Leopold Oppenheimer wrote his dissertation in 1860 in Leipzig and in 1875 became a member of the Patriotische Gesellschaft in Hamburg.

The marriage of Paul (really Philipp) and Alice Oppenheimer resulted in three sons: Albert (born 1892), Paul (born 1895) and Ernst (born 1897). The family lived for more than thirty years in the suburb of Rotherbaum: around 1892 at 8a Harvestehuder Weg, where their son Albert was born, at 49 Johnsallee until 1897, and from 1898–1902 at 27 Heimhuderstraße, and finally until 1906 at 33 Johnsallee, from 1907–1918 at 4 Feldbrunnenstraße , next door to her father, Albert Oppenheim, and from then until 1926 at 15 Heimhuderstraße. It was only in 1927 that Philipp and Alice Oppenheimer moved to the suburb of Winterhude, initially at 84 Sierichstraße and from 1930 at 58 Sierichstraße.

The eldest son, Albert, completed his high school studies in the Easter of 1911 and commenced legal studies at the Wilhelm Gymnasium. On 6 August 1914 he completed his first state legal exams, an exam done suddenly as they young men were now required for war. Around two months later he enlisted in the cavalry of the Emperor’s army. The son Paul Oppenheimer who was three years younger was also called up. He died in May 1917 as a private on the Western Front. There is no information about the role of the third son, Ernst Oppenheimer in the war.

After the war and the demobilisation Albert Oppenheimer continued the family’s legal tradition: the second state legal exam occurred in 1921 for veterans and in 1922 he was awarded his doctorate in Erlangen. In 1925 he was made a junior partner in his father’s legal firm with the lawyers Emil Behrens (1859–1942), Dr. Eduard Beith (1882–1937) and Dr. Louis Levy (1891–1971). In 1925 he paid taxes for the first time to the Hamburg Jewish Community. From 1924 Ernst Oppenheimer was listed in the Hamburg Jewish Community as a member. His occupation was listed as "employee”. He paid taxes to the community until 1929 i.e. he had work and an income. The tax payments ceased in 1930. It is possible that Ernst Oppenheimer lost his job in the Great Depression and from 1933, because he was a Jew, found no more work. He continued to live with his parents, which in those times, was usual for an unmarried man aged over 40. Philipp/Paul Oppenheimer died in 1937 at the age of 83.

The older son, Albert Oppenheimer, who until 1933 had worked in his father’s legal practice at 14 Dammtorstraße and from then until 1938 in his own practice, worked until 1941 with the Jewish "Religionsverband” until his emigration in July 1941 (from Barcelona to the USA). Alice’s step-daughter, Olga Wolfers, nee Oppenheimer and her husband Hugo Wolfers (born 22.10.1875), owner of the linen and cotton wholesale business Schönfeld & Wolfers (31/32 Hohe Bleichen), were deported on 6 December 1941 to Riga. Alice Oppenheimer’s youngest son, Ernst, was deported on 8 November 1941 to Minsk.

Alice Oppenheimer now lived alone in the apartment at 58 Sierichstraße. She often met her sister, Johanna Rappolt, also a widow. On 20 March 1942 Alice Oppenheimer was forced to move into a "Judenhaus" at 6 Beneckestraße (Rotherbaum). She and her sister Johanna Rappolt, nee Oppenheim were deported on 15 July 1942 to Theresienstadt. Both sisters were quartered in Building L 425 8 Nr.13 h. According to the official death records of the Theresienstadt Ghetto Alice Oppenheimer died 6 weeks after her arrival from a weak hear. The date her son Ernst died is unknown.

Translator: Dr. Stephen Pallavicini

© Björn Eggert

Quellen: 1; 3; 4; 5; 8; StaHH 241-2 (Justizverwaltung Personalakten), Signatur A 1811 (Dr. Albert Oppenheimer); StaHH 131-1 II (Senatskanzlei II), Signatur 3612 (Korrespondenz ehem. jüd. Mitbürger, Dr. Albert Oppenheimer), 1966–1973; StaHH 314-15 (Oberfinanzpräsident), Signatur FVg 8619 (Dr. Albert Oppenheimer), 1941; StaHH 424-13 (Liegenschaft Altona), Signatur 740 und 760 (Grundstücksakte, Dr. Paul Oppenheimer); Heiko Morisse, Jüdische Rechtsanwälte in Hamburg. Ausgrenzung und Verfolgung im NS-Staat, Hamburg 2003, S. 150; Gerrit Schmidt, Die Geschichte der Hamburger Anwaltschaft von 1815 bis 1879, Hamburg 1989, S. 375; Wilhelm Mosel, Wegweiser zu ehemaligen jüdischen Staetten in Hamburg, Heft 2, Hamburg 1985, S. 54–55 (Hirsch Berend Oppenheimer, Dr. R.L. Oppenheimer, Dr. Paul Oppenheimer); Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte, Hamburg Portrait Heft 27/97, Juden in Hamburg – Begleitheft zur Ausstellung (Abb. des Hauses Neuer Wall, Stahlstich, o. D.); Jahrbuch der Hamburgischen Gesellschaft zur Beförderung der Künste und nützlichen Gewerbe (Patriotische Gesellschaft), Hamburg 1915, S. 64 (Dr. R. L. Oppenheimer); Wilhelm Gymnasium Hamburg 1881–1956, Hamburg o. D., S. 119; AB 1936 (Beneckestr. 6); Amtliche Fernsprechbücher Hamburg (Oppenheimer) 1895–1936; Amtliche Fernsprechbücher Hamburg (Albert Oppenheim) 1895, 1899–1901, 1906–1911; Briefe von Franz Rappolt an seinen Sohn Ernst Rappolt in die USA, Privatbesitz, 1940–1941; E-Mails des Urenkels H. W. (Australien), 15.1.2008, 24.2.2008; Universität Heidelberg 1878 Jura-Promotion von Philipp Oppenheimer (* 1854), lateinischer Lebenslauf; Beate Meyer (Hrsg.), Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der Hamburger Juden 1933–1945, Hamburg 2006, S. 46 (Abb. Albert Oppenheimer); Irmgard Stein, Jüdische Baudenkmäler in Hamburg, Hamburg 1987, S. 114f.
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