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Malwine Steiner (née Weisinger) * 1889

Hütten 87 (vormals Nr. 92) (Hamburg-Mitte, Neustadt)

HIER WOHNTE
MALWINE STEINER
GEB. WEISINGER
JG. 1889
DEPORTIERT 1941
ERMORDET IN
LODZ

Malwine Amalie Steiner, née Weisinger, born 3 Oct. 1888 in Busovysko, deported 25 Oct. 1941 to Lodz

Hütten 87 (Hütten 92)

Malwine Amalie Steiner was called Mala. At the time of her birth, her parents Sindel Weisinger and Hena, née Heimer, were living in Busovysko in Galicia, a former crown land of Austria-Hungary. The couple had at least three other children. No details are known about Malwine’s childhood or adolescence. Where and when the she and the merchant Jakob Steiner wed we also do not know. Malwine’s older sister Schifra Weisinger (born 18 June 1883) married the travelling salesman Emil Wechsler (born 26 Mar. 1884) in Hamburg on 21 Oct. 1908.

Jakob Steiner also was a native of Galicia, specifically he came from the small town of Ulanow where he was born on 28 Dec. 1887. On 15 Apr. 1913, Jakob opened "Steiner’s Seifen & Parfümeriegeschäft”, a soap and perfume shop, in Hamburg on the ground floor at Schaarsteinweg 3. The couple moved into an apartment on the first floor. Early in the 1920s, he moved the shop to Schaarsteinweg 1, corner of Stubbenhuk, and five years later to the street Vorsetzen 41. The store developed fairly well over the years. Jacob Steiner was able to hire a saleswoman, and two sales representatives worked for him on commission after he expanded his retail business in 1929/1930 to supply the Hapag steamships. He renovated the premises, and the couple moved into an apartment on the third floor at Hütten 92 in 1934.

Their oldest daughter Rita was born on 28 May 1914, her sister Sascha Judith followed eleven years later on 25 Dec. 1925. Both sisters later managed to flee Germany. Sascha was not quite 13 years old when she was taken to safety in England on a Kindertransport at the end of 1938. Rita managed to finish her formal education in Altona, graduating from the public high school Oberlyzeum in 1933. But as a Jew she was barred from studying at university. She took on a job as an office clerk at the company of Simon Tannenbaum, a distributor of cosmetic products. She quit the job in 1936 to help out in her father’s store and later took over management. On 7 July 1938 she married the businessman and native of Heidelberg Julius Sander (born 20 June 1908) in Hamburg and followed him to the USA at the end of Feb. 1939.

After her daughter’s departure, Malwine Steiner was left to her own devices because her husband had passed away at Israelite Hospital on 9 Mar. 1938. In the autumn of 1938 she found a potential buyer for the perfume store, whose revenue was declining, but she never closed the deal. At the end of Nov., the Gestapo seized all of her business records and the remaining stock under the false pretenses that Malwine Steiner was selling goods below market value. The perfume store was closed, and in June 1939 a trustee opened bankruptcy proceedings.

Malwine Steiner gave up her household and lived as a lodger at Parkallee 7 with a "Miss S. Baruch”. In Apr. 1940 she was registered at Rutschbahn 39. Her last residence was with a Jewish couple, the Ottenheimers, Beim Schlump 3. On 25 Oct. 1941 Malwine Steiner was deported to the Lodz Ghetto "Litzmannstadt”. Her further fate is not known.

Her landlords Michael (born 7 May 1878) and Martha Ottenheimer, née Rosenstein (born 25 Nov. 1888), had to board a transport to Minsk on 8 Nov. 1941.

Translator: Suzanne von Engelhardt
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: June 2020
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: 1; 4; StaH 351-11 AfW 9793 (Kaufmann, Sascha); StaH 351-11 AfW 11271 (Steiner, Malwine); StaH 351-11 AfW 33841 (Sander, Julius); StaH 332-5 Standesämter 8661 u 753/1908; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 1088 u 91/1938; StaH 351-14 Arbeits- und Sozialfürsorge 1932 (Steiner, Mala); StaH 314-15 OFP, R 1939/134; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinde Nr. 992 e 2 Band 1; http://search.geshergalicia.org (Zugriff 12.10.2016).
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