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Olga Hertz * 1880

Husumer Straße 16 (Hamburg-Nord, Hoheluft-Ost)

1941 Lodz
ermordet 05.04.1942

further stumbling stones in Husumer Straße 16:
Emil Abraham Asten, Henriette Asten, Dr. Samuel Dessau, Minna Dessau, Berta Hoffmann

Olga Hertz, born on 30 Apr. 1880 in Hamburg, deported on 25 Oct. 1941 to Lodz, died there on 5 Apr. 1942

Husumer Strasse 16

Olga Hertz was the daughter of the Hamburg Jewish couple Julius Hertz and Jenny Louise Hertz, née Peine. She remained unmarried; it was not possible to document any gainful employment, and nothing is known of any descendants. She seems to have turned away from the Jewish faith, describing herself in a few documents as being "without any creed,” and her name appears in the records of the Hamburg Jewish Community only briefly in one instance: on the occasion of the compulsory joining of the Reich Association of Jews (Reichsvereinigung der Juden) on 2 Dec. 1939 and her "leaving the Jewish denomination” on 4 Dec. 1939 – for the Nazi rulers, she continued to be Jewish in accordance with the Nuremberg Laws [on race] dating from 1935.

In Oct. 1938, she left her apartment at Woldsenweg 2 and moved in with her sister Henriette Asten (born on 22 May 1879) at Husumer Strasse 16 on the third floor. Henriette had converted to the Lutheran denomination, and her two children were also baptized as Protestants.

On 25 Oct. 1941, Olga was deported to the Lodz Ghetto. There she was, like many other Hamburg victims of this transport, quartered on Blattbinderstrasse, in apartment 1 of house no. 5. On the registration form, the moving-in date is listed as 10 Nov. 1941. It seems, therefore, that Olga Hertz was accommodated somewhere else for several weeks prior to this date, probably in one of the horrendous provisional arrangements, usually totally overcrowded rooms without beds and furnishings.

In the row concerning "occupation,” the entry inserted was a handwritten "none.” Anyone who did not have work in the ghetto received even less to eat than the usual starvation rations. The motto was, "Working to survive.” Olga Hertz was 61 years old by then. In the dreadful conditions, she did not even survive for half a year. The residents’ registration file indicated her "cancellation of registration” ("Abmeldung”) for 5 Apr. 1942, "cause: death.”

Her sister, Henriette Asten, was deported to Riga-Jungfernhof on 6 Dec. 1941 and murdered there.

Translator: Erwin Fink

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2016
© Johannes Grossmann

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 8; StaH 332-8 Meldewesen, A 51 (Olga Hertz und Henriette Asten); StaH 522-1 Jüd. Gemeinden, 992e2 Band 1; Archiwum Panstwowe, Lodz (Getto-Archiv), Melderegister, Olga Hertz, PL-39-278-1011-8673 und 8674.
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