Emma Guttmann
* 1873

Emma (Emmy) Guttmann, née Stavenhagen, born 17 July 1873 in Hamburg, deported 19 July 1942 to Theresienstadt, from there to Treblinka on 21 Sep. 1942

Emma Stavenhagen was of Jewish heritage and the daughter of Louise and Jonas Stavenhagen. She married Heinrich Guttmann, who died in 1920. The couple had two daughters: Käte (15 May 1900) and Lotte (2 July 1902). The family lived at Woldsenweg 5 in Eppendorf, and at some point that cannot be determined, moved to a comfortable four-room apartment at Heilwigstraße 23.

After the death of her husband, the Jewish Community kept tax records in Emma Guttmann’s name. Her profession was given as “landlady” and her business address as Heilwigstraße 27, 3rd floor. She probably ran a small boarding house there.

Until about the end of 1941, Emma Guttmann lived at Heilwigstraße 23. Her house maid Irma Aster recounted after the war that Emma suffered under the “aversions” of the other tenants in the building, and that the state forced her to move out of the apartment. At that point she was not in good health and in need of care after an accident. She was assigned a room with the Jewish Meyer family on Jungfrauenthal. Irma Aster: “Frau Guttmann lived for about six to nine months in the room. She then had to leave because Frau Meyer had committed suicide.”

Emma Guttmann was then assigned a room in a small townhouse at Sierichstraße 153. There, as in the larger “Jews’ houses,” the Jews were forced to live in overcrowded conditions until they were deported (see also: Friedmann, Luca, Mirabeau, Schneeroff).

Emma Guttmann was deported to Theresienstadt on 19 July 1942. Two months later, on 21 September 1942, she was transferred to the Treblinka extermination camp and murdered. She was declared dead after the war. Both of her daughters survived.

Translator: Amy Lee

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.