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Therese Lewin * 1893

Steinwegpassage 28 (Hamburg-Mitte, Neustadt)

HIER WOHNTE
THERESE LEWIN
JG. 1893
DEPORTIERT 1941
RIGA
ERMORDET

further stumbling stones in Steinwegpassage 28:
Henry Koppel, William Salomon, Alfred Samenfeld

Therese Lewin, born on 21 June 1893 in Hamburg, deported 6 Dec. 1941 to Riga-Jungfernhof

Steinwegpassage 28

For unmarried 39-year-old Therese Lewin, the year in which Adolf Hitler was appointed Reich Chancellor brought not only political but also profound personal changes. Her mother Amalie Lewin, née Schoyer (born on 12 Mar. 1858), in whose household she had lived a very secluded life and whom she had nursed for several years, died on 20 Sept. 1933. In earlier years, Therese Lewin had worked as a sales assistant for her parents, who apparently operated a street trade. After the death of her mother, she could not find her way back to gainful employment. A clerk at the Hamburg employment office thought that she was too old and since she was also Jewish, she could no longer be placed. Therese Lewin lived on meager welfare benefits and had to do "welfare work” ("Unterstützungsarbeit”) at the Rosenallee sewing shop three days a week, which did not correspond to her skills. For a time, she then worked as a cleaning woman in the Jewish Community Center on Hartungstrasse and later in a factory, possibly already as a forced laborer. She was able to hold on to the three-bedroom apartment of her deceased mother at Steinwegpassage 28, where she lived with her older half-sister, by accepting subtenants (see Alfred Samenfeld and Henry Koppel). Under the address of Steinwegpassage 28, Therese Lewin was still listed in the Hamburg directories as late as 1943, although she had already been deported on 6 Dec. 1941 to Riga-Jungfernhof, where all traces of her disappear.

Therese Lewin’s half-sister was Sophie Schoyer. She was born on 26 Aug. 1877 in the household of her grandparents Marcus Liepmann Schoyer and Friederike, née Moses, on Kleine Michaelisstrasse, Platz 25. Her and Sophie’s common mother Amalie Schoyer was unmarried at that time and earned her living at the age of 19 as a self-employed trader.

Therese was subsequently born 16 years later at Kraienkamp 22 (today Krayenkamp). Meanwhile her mother had married the wool merchant Sally Lewin (born on 10 May 1860) from Schönfließ in the New March (Neumark) (today Poland) in Altona on 9 July 1889. The couple Amalie and Sally Lewin moved quite frequently. The last addresses were at Neuer Steinweg 96 and Mühlenstrasse 8 (today part of Gerstäckerstrasse), where Sally Lewin died shortly after his fifty-first birthday on 21 May 1911. Via Marcusstrasse 18 (today Markusstrasse), Amalie Lewin and her daughters finally moved to Steinwegpassage 28. Sophie Schoyer earned her own livelihood, and in 1904, she registered a trade for textiles and fashion accessories. She operated a street stand on nearby Elbstrasse (today Neanderstrasse), which was no longer profitable by the end of the 1920s, also because her goods had come out of "fashion.” She lost her savings through inflation, so that the Jewish religious taxes (Kultussteuern), which she had to pay as a member to the Jewish Community, were waived starting in 1929. When Sophie Schoyer, at the age of 62, had her trade license revoked on 30 June 1938 as a "non-Aryan,” she, too, became dependent on welfare support. Sophie Schoyer eventually had to move into a "Jews’ house” ("Judenhaus”), the former Hertz-Joseph-Levy-Stift at Grossneumarkt 56. She died on 7 July 1942 in the Israelite Hospital at Johnsallee 68 of the effects of cancer.

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

Stand: May 2020
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: 1; 6; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 2314 u 2286/1893; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 1910 u 3977/1877; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 653 u 376/1911; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 1008 u 255/1933; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 8180 u 319/1942; StaH 351-14 Arbeits- und Sozialfürsorge 1446 (Schoyer, Sophie); StaH 351-14 Arbeits- und Sozialfürsorge 1445 (Lewin, Therese); StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden 160 Verzeichnis der am 1. Dezember 1890 in Altona anwesenden Israeliten; StaH 332-8 Meldewesen K 5609; diverse Hamburger Adressbücher.
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