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Katharina Loofmann (née Schönfeld) * 1890

Klaus-Groth-Straße 104 (Oben Borgfelde 57) (Hamburg-Mitte, Borgfelde)

HIER WOHNTE
KATHARINA LOOFMANN
GEB. SCHÖNFELD
JG. 1890
DEPORTIERT 1943
THERESIENSTADT
ERMORDET 10.9.1943

Katharina Loofmann, Drews prior to divorce, née Schönfeld, born on 23 Apr. 1890 in Hamburg, deported on 23 June 1943 to Theresienstadt, death there on 10 Sept. 1943

Klaus-Groth-Strasse 104 (Oben Borgfelde 57)

Katharina Loofmann came from a Jewish family in Hamburg, got married twice in succession to Christian men, and became the mother of a "half-Jewish” daughter. She distanced herself from the religion when religious affiliation served the Nuremberg Laws on race in Sept. 1935 to qualify her as non-German. Classified as a "full Jewess” ("Volljüdin”), however, she was forced to join the Reich Association of Jews in Germany (Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland) in 1939, though refusing to become a member of the "Jewish Religious Organization” ("Jüdischer Religionsverband”) in Hamburg. On 23 June 1943, she was deported to Theresienstadt.

Katharina Loofmann was born as the oldest daughter of the married couple Johann Schönfeld and his wife Serine, née Levy, in Hamburg. Her father was a typesetter by trade and belonged to the German-Israelitic.

Katharina Schönfeld started a family of her own during the First World War. On 1 Nov. 1915, she married the Lutheran commercial clerk Wilhelm Drews, born on 22 Oct. 1890 in Hamburg. On 25 Sept. 1916, her daughter I. was born and baptized a Protestant. In 1920, Serine Schönfeld passed away. After eight years of marriage, Katharina Drews was divorced as the innocent party on 8 Nov. 1923, and she received custody of her daughter. She moved to Griesstrasse 5 in Hamm, where she lived for many years. The daughter attended Realschule [a practice-oriented secondary school up to grade 10] and subsequently the Deutsche Oberschule für Mädchen ["German girls’ secondary school”] at Lübeckertorfeld.

In her second marital union, on 4 Sept. 1926, Katharina Drews married a former officer of the Imperial Navy, Ernst Loofmann, born on 29 Nov. 1883 in Berlin, who worked as a ship’s officer for the AEG Company; he, too, was a Protestant. In 1932, Katharina Loofmann was diagnosed with breast cancer and she underwent a successful operation.

In 1933, when it became clear that the daughter, as a "half-Jewess” ("Halbjüdin”), would not be allowed to take the exam to obtain her high-school diploma (Abitur), she left school with the secondary school-leaving certificate in grade 11 (Obersekundareife), following up on that with a tailor’s apprenticeship at the fashion house of Johanna Spitzer-Meyer on Alsterdamm as of 1 Apr. 1934.

The family moved to Burgstrasse 46 and from there into a more luxurious new building at Oben Borgfelde 57. I. stopped both her apprenticeship as a tailor and another one as a commercial trainee, though staying with the company until 1937. Both apprenticeships would have been favorable prerequisites for subsequent self-employment. However, again she would not have been allowed to take the exams necessary to this end due to her Jewish descent.

Ernst Loofmann died on 21 Dec. 1939. Thus, Katharina Loofmann lost all rights associated with living in a "privileged mixed marriage” ("privilegierte Mischehe”). The navy officer’s pension was cancelled and the company pension from the AEG reduced to a voluntary amount of 40 RM (reichsmark). No longer able to maintain her lifestyle, she was forced to give up the three-bedroom apartment at Oben Borgfelde 57. Together with her daughter, she moved into a smaller apartment at Altstädter Strasse 11. The sale of furnishings and household effects contributed to making a living.

On 12 Jan. 1941, Johann Schönfeld died entirely destitute at the age of 78 in a home of the Jewish Community at Schlachterstrasse 40–42, where he had been compelled to move.

In 1940, I. found a job with Julius Berger Tiefbau AG, a civil engineering company. From her income, she also supported her mother, who only received the modest allocations of food stamps for "full Jews” and the voluntary support benefit from AEG. As of 1 Feb. 1942, the latter was cancelled as well.

Ten years after her first breast operation, Katharina Loofmann had a relapse. She was again operated on at the Marienkrankenhaus, receiving radiation treatment in the spring of 1943, which caused severe lymphatic congestion in both arms. Moreover, she suffered from back pain, which suggested metastases in the spine. Extremely frail and in need of care, Katharina Loofmann was accommodated in the retirement home of the Jewish Community at Beneckestrasse 2 in early June 1943, from where she was deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto on 23 June 1943. She died there on 10 Sept. 1943 at the age of 53 years.


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

Stand: March 2017
© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 7; StaH, 351-11 AfW, 250916; 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden, 992 e2, Bd. 5; 992 n, Bd 22.
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