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Henriette Weiss (née Goldschmidt) * 1860

Eilbeker Weg Ecke Kantstraße (Wandsbek, Eilbek)

HIER WOHNTE
HENRIETTE WEISS
GEB. GOLDSCHMIDT
JG. 1860
DEPORTIERT 1942
THERESIENSTADT
ERMORDET 19.10.1942

Henriette Weiss, née Goldschmidt, b. am 8.28.1860 in Hamburg, deported on 7.19.1942 to Theresienstadt, dying there on 10.9.1942

Eilbeker Weg/southeast corner of Kantstraße (Eilbeker Weg 158)

On 10 April 1883 in Hamburg, Henriette Goldschmidt married the metal and gold worker and master plumber, Ignatz Weiss, b. 23 July 1856 in Prague, the illegitimate son of Eleonara Weiss. When Ignatz Weiss came to Ottensen (Altona) is not known. He possessed Austrian citizenship and, after the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1919, received a Czech passport. Whether he ever sought citizenship in Hamburg is not known.

Henriette Weiss obtained Hamburg and, later, German citizenship. Both were of the Jewish faith.

Henriette’s father, Michel Beer Goldschmidt, did not live to see his daughter’s wedding; he died in 1875. Henriette Goldschmidt’s mother Bertha, née Levin, survived her husband by almost 30 years and died in 1903.

Henriette was born in Hamburg on 28 August 1862 and grew up with her one-year older brother Gustav in the Hamburg new city.

Both were born in at Strasse Thielbeck 5 at the Grossneumarkt, where their father ran a fancy goods and haberdashery store. When the business premises and living quarters no longer sufficed, Michel Goldschmidt built a warehouse on Alten Steinweg in 1870 and combined once again his business and living quarters at Wexstrasse 42. Gustav Goldschmidt had received training in business; nothing is known about Henriette’s career. The siblings were 16 and 15 years old when their father died. Bertha Goldschmidt, widowed at 43, made herself independent with a warehouse at Valentinskamp 83 for beds, feathers, and down; she briefly ran a second business at Reeperbahn 83 and continued it in the new city at Neustrasse 92. She was also living there with her children when her daughter Henriette married Ignatz Weiss in 1883.

On 2 February 1884, Henriette Weiss brought her son into the world at Grossen Brunnenstrasse 87 in Ottensen. He was her only child. The family moved from Ottensen to Hamburg. At Carolinenstrasse 21, Ignatz Weiss settled as a plumber, although certainly not for long. Around 1890, the Weiss family resettled in Eilbek. Ignatz Weiss spent almost his entire later life in the Barmbek-Eilbek area. In 1903, he opened a metal manufactory on Heitmannstrasse, in 1905 a household wares business on Desenisstrasse, which he continued at Eilbeker Weg 158.

Henriette and Ignatz Weiss encouraged their son Max in his artistic inclinations. He attended an arts and crafts school and became a painter and graphic artist, but did manual labor also. When he married in 1912, he was a painter’s apprentice and no longer lived in the parental home. His wife Wilhelmine, née Schuchardt, was the daughter of the shoemaker Christoph Schuchardt from Langen Reihe and his wife Wilhelmine, née Felscher. She described herself as of no faith. On 2 December 1912, Henriette’s first grandchild was born, Leonore, the daughter of Max and Wilhelmine Weiss. Four years later, Elisabeth was born and then a late arrival, Max Otto on 19 July 1924. Ignatz Weiss did not live to see the birth of his grandson Max Otto.

In 1922, Ignatz Weiss had given up his business and applied to the Jewish Congregation for acceptance in a seniors’ residence. Whether he went to the Lazarus Gumpel home at Schlachterstrasse 46 or in the old people’s home at Schäferkampsallee is not precisely ascertainable from the records. On 2 April 1923 he died in the Israelite Hospital and was buried in the Ohlsdorf Jewish cemetery. He died as a citizen of Czechoslovakia. Ignatz Weiss’ illness and death occurred during the Inflation era. Unlike her mother, Henriette Weiss, as a 63 year-old widow, was not in a position to undertake an occupational new beginning. She live on welfare and on support from her brother Gustav Goldschmidt, who, as a lottery collector, enjoyed a certain well-being. He died in 1928.

With independent means, even though widowed, Henriette Weiss was able to maintain her standard of living. She was not forced to sell off her Gramophone or her records or her jewelry. In the beginning of National Socialist rule, Henriette, then 72, and her son Max were not much affected. When her granddaughter Leonore moved to Copenhagen in 1937, it was more from personal than political motives.

With the November Pogrom of 1938, Max Weiss lost the right to practice his profession, which had secured a good living for his family. After being out of work for a year, he found a position as a decorative painter with the Fritz Altenburg firm, which he held until 21 November 1941. Thereafter, he was obliged by the Gestapo to do forced labor in the Jewish work contingent, under Willibald Schallert, for the Christian Klood firm.

A half year later, Henriette Weiss was deported. The order for the transport to the Theresienstadt "old people’s ghetto,” on 19 July 1942, was the second within two days; it reached her at her lodgings in the Lazarus Gumpel-Stift at Schlachterstraße 46. Leaving behind all of her room furnishings, her jewelry, and her savings account book, she joined the transport with 770 other elderly people. She died in the ghetto, according to the death certificate, on 9 October 1942 at 82 years of age. The Hamburg and Federal memorial books list the day of death as 19 October 1942; the Theresienstadt memorial book, as 18 October 1942. Only two from the transport lived to see their liberation.

Two and one-half years later, Max Weiss was deported out of the work contingent, also to Theresienstadt. On 14 February 1945, he left in a transport from Hamburg along with 194 people, classified as "Jews of Importance" or who were living in so-called mixed-marriages, to an alleged work contingent in the Theresienstadt ghetto. Thanks to the liberation of the ghetto by the Red Army, 190 of them survived, among them Max Weiss. He returned to Hamburg on 30 June 1945.

Henriette Weiss’ niece, Paula, the daughter of her brother Gustav Goldschmidt, was married to the bank official Otto Sussmann. As of August 1938, he lost his position with the Warburg Banking House; three months later, in the wake of November Pogrom, he was imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. His wife Paula emigrated with their children to the USA in December 1938.


Translator: Richard Levy
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: May 2019
© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: 1, 4, 5, 7, 9; AB; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 2654-300/1883; 7962-40/1903; 870-178/1923; 6157-78/1884; 8093-209/1928; 8097-134/1929; 8227-357/1954; 8550-60/1891; 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung 6990, 17350; 552-1 Jüdische Gemeinden 696 e Geburtsregister Nr. 172, 992 e 2 Deportationslisten, Bd. 5.
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