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Erna Löw (née Fries) * 1880

Eimsbütteler Chaussee 90 (Eimsbüttel, Eimsbüttel)

1941 Riga
ermordet

further stumbling stones in Eimsbütteler Chaussee 90:
Leo Löw

Erna Löw, née Fries, born on 25 Nov. 1880 in Altona, deported on 6 Dec. 1941 to Riga
Leo Löw, born on 22 Feb. 1876 in Hamburg, detained in 1941, deported on 4 Dec. 1941 to Riga

Eimsbütteler Chaussee 90

Leo Löw was the son of the merchant Joseph Löw and his wife Rosa, née Lichtenstaedt. He had two sisters, Babette and Lilly, and as a child he lived at Heinrich-Barth-Strasse 10 in the Rotherbaum quarter. Before moving to the Grindel quarter, the family had lived in Hamburg-Neustadt at Auf dem Neuerwall 94, where Leo Löw was also born. The father passed away in 1926.

In 1907, Leo Löw married the Jewish woman Erna Fries, a native of Hamburg and the daughter of Isidor Fries and his wife Fanny, née Gabriel. In 1880, her parents lived in St. Pauli at Neue Rosenstrasse 31. When Erna and Leo Löw got married, Erna lived at Paulinenstrasse 15 and Leo at Grosse Allee 10 (today’s Max-Brauer-Allee). Both were still living with their families. Leo Löw was a "bank officer” ("Bankbeamter”), as it was called in those days. He was a stock market representative for the Emil Heckscher banking house, subsequently working as an insurance agent.

Erna and Leo Löw had three daughters: Ingeborg, called Babette (born in 1908), Hildegard Rita (born in 1913), and Gisela Gabriele, called Gisa (born in 1916). As the family became bigger, they moved to the fifth floor of the house at Eimsbütteler Chaussee 90 in 1913, living there until Jan. 1936, at which time a move to Grindelallee 93 took place. The last address was Parkallee 8. This is where the Löws lived at the beginning of the year 1939, when they were forced to assume the compulsory names of Sara and Israel.

The three daughters of the Löw family survived thanks to their emigration – but emigration rarely meant a "happy end,” securing only survival, often connected to traumatic experiences of persecution, uprooting, and poverty. Ingeborg Babette, for instance, had a speech defect and was partially deaf, which made life for her even more of a strain following emigration. After attending the girls’ secondary school on Barstelsstrasse until 1923, she had attended the girls’ high school (Lyzeum) operated by Else Weissmann on Weidenallee, followed by a private 10th school year. She then did an apprenticeship with the Simon Arendt Company, "special store for modern women’s fashions,” at Neuer Wall 35, attended the State Vocational School from May 1925 until Sept. 1927, and passed the apprentice’s final examination (Gesellenprüfung). Until 1932, she worked with the Robinsohn Bros. Company. Afterward, she obtained further qualifications, attending Ida Mähl’s Technical College for the Women’s Tailoring Trade (Fachschule für das Damenschneidereigewerbe) on Mundsburger Damm and passing examination for the master diploma. Precisely at the point when she seemed to have reached her professional goal, the Nazis assumed power and denied her, as a Jewish woman, a successful professional career. She was even refused the issuing of the master diploma, but in Mar. 1933 she was able to register a business, and in May 1933, she was entered in the register of qualified craftspeople. In early 1933, she had still been able to participate in a fashion show held in the Atlantic Hotel, but a few months later, she was no longer allowed to do so. In the Hamburger Familienblatt, she tried to attract customers in a classified ad in Nov. 1933. As a Jewish woman, she was not permitted to train any apprentices, though until the fall of 1938, she secretly employed five girls doing preliminary work. Shortly before her emigration to Palestine, she got married pro forma because her husband had an emigration certificate. However, she never lived together with him, and in 1945, the marriage was officially divorced. It was hardly possible for her to gain a professional foothold in Palestine since she was disabled and left entirely to her own devices. In Sept. 1958, she returned to Hamburg.

Sister Hildegard Rita emigrated to Britain as early as Apr. 1937. She had actually planned to start her own business together with sister Ingeborg Babette and to work toward a livelihood in the fashion industry together with her sister. Therefore, after attending the Schlankreye Higher State Business School, she had worked as an intern for the Unger fashion house in early 1932. After 1933, however, she was only able to work as a children’s nurse in private households.

The youngest daughter, Gisa Gabriele, had already suffered from anti-Semitic attacks on the part of teachers and fellow students even in her school years, something that spoiled this time and prevented her from attending school in Hamburg until obtaining a certificate. This applied to both Emilie-Wüstenfeld School and the Schlankreye Business School. From the spring of 1934 until Oct. 1935, she worked as a nanny and then went to Scheveningen for several months, a travel opportunity that her grandfather Isidor Fries had made possible. In Apr. 1936, she returned to Hamburg because she hoped that due to the Olympic Games the anti-Jewish climate might have improved. However, when she was summoned to report to the Gestapo in Oct. 1937 and was to surrender her passport, she fled to the Netherlands, emigrating to Britain in Feb. 1938.

The parents remained behind in Hamburg alone. At the beginning of Dec. 1941, they received the deportation order to Riga-Jungfernhof, where they perished.

The father of Erna Löw, Isidor Fries (born on 1 Oct. 1855), who lived at Heussweg 16 and, in the very end, in the "Jews’ house” ("Judenhaus”) at Beneckestrasse 6, was deported to Theresienstadt on 9 June 1943 and died there on 10 Aug. 1943.


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

Stand: March 2017
© Susanne Lohmeyer

Quellen; 1; 4; 5; 8; StaH 332-5 Standesämter, 3091 + 272/1907; StaH 332-5, 1879 + 941/1876; StaH 332-5, 1985 + 5571/1880; StaH 351-11 AfW, 2977;2978;2979; StaH 522-1, 992e2 Bd. 5, Deportationsliste; Hildegard Thevs, Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Hamm, S. 40, HAB I, II und IV, 1933–1943.
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