Flora Halberstadt
* 1860

Flora Halberstadt, born on 15 Apr. 1860 in Hamburg, deported on 19 July 1942 to Theresienstadt, died there on 1 Dec. 1942

Grossneumarkt 38 (Schlachterstrasse 46/47)

Flora Halberstadt was born on 15 Apr. 1860 on Peterstrasse and grew up there. Her father Joachim Abraham called himself Halberstadt, although the original family name was Joachim. The grandparents on their father’s side, Abraham and Gütel Joachim, née Goldschmidt, had lived at Neuer Steinweg Hof 78, where they traded in glass. Flora’s parents had also been merchants. Her mother Henriette, née Hertz, gave birth to another son, who was named Joseph Joachim, on 19 Mar. 1862.

Joseph Joachim Halberstadt became a merchant. At Kaiser-Wilhelm-Strasse 116, he opened a watch and gold articles wholesale company and married the teacher Martha Elias (born on 21 Oct. 1859 in Altona) on 15 Oct. 1896.

Unlike her brother, daughter Flora continued to reside in her parents’ household. The year her brother married and she was aged 36, she had a son on 6 May 1896, whom she named Henry and put up for foster care. Little Henry died at the age of six months on 19 November in the home of his foster mother Ernestine Gumprecht at Süderstrasse 29 and was buried at the Jewish Cemetery in Langenfelde. Three years later, on 11 Jan. 1899, another child, daughter Alice Bertha, was born. Alice grew up with her mother Flora and her grandmother Henriette at Peterstrasse 61. She did not get to know her grandfather Joachim anymore, as he had died on 19 Apr. 1895. Henriette Halberstadt passed away on 5 Aug. 1915.

Flora worked as a seamstress, and during the First World War also as a factory worker. In Mar. 1919, she gave up the apartment on Peterstrasse and moved with her daughter to the Jewish Lazarus-Gumpel-Stift, a residential home at Schlachterstrasse 46/47, house no. 5. In June of the same year, she lost her job at Südfrüchte, a fruit wholesale business operated by H. Möller at Neue ABC-Strasse 12, due to a lack of orders. As she was already suffering from lung disease, she was unable to continue working temporarily in a quilt factory and had to apply for welfare benefits. At the end of 1922, she worked as a mat weaver in the “Hamburger Werkstätten für Erwerbsbeschränkte,” an institution founded two years earlier by the Senate of the Hanseatic city to create jobs for war-disabled people, among others. From 1926 onward, Flora Halberstadt received a disability pension of 20.72 RM (reichsmark) per month. On 11 Dec. 1926, her daughter Alice married the mechanic Ewald Julius Hübenthal (born on 31 Dec. 1883 in Springe) and started her own family.

In 1934, Flora Halberstadt moved within the Lazarus-Gumpel-Stift, probably into a smaller apartment. Eventually, she had to share apartment no. 14 in house 3 with Hanna Aghitstein (see corresponding entry). The “Law on Tenancies with Jews” (“Gesetz über die Mietverhältnisse mit Juden”) dated 30 Apr. 1939 had restricted housing for the Jewish population to a great extent. The Lazarus-Gumpel-Stift, one of a total of 15 residential homes, was later declared a “Jews’ house” (“Judenhaus”) by the Nazi rulers in preparation for deportation and it had to accommodate more and more people.

Together with her roommate, Flora Halberstadt received her deportation order for 19 June 1942 to Theresienstadt. The remaining household effects were confiscated by the Gestapo and publicly auctioned off after their deportation. According to the death notice of the Theresienstadt Ghetto, Flora Halberstadt died of heart failure on 1 Dec. 1942.

Her daughter Alice Hübenthal, also mother of a daughter, was protected by her “privileged mixed marriage” (“privilegierte Mischehe”). During the heavy air raids on Hamburg, she was bombed out twice, fled to Bayreuth and did not return to Hamburg until July 1946.

Flora’s brother, Joseph Halberstadt, had supported his sister financially until he was no longer able to do so due to his own persecution. On 15 July 1942, the Halberstadt couple was deported from the “Jews’ house” on Bundesstrasse 43 to Theresienstadt. Both died in the same year, Joseph on 30 Sept. 1942, his wife Martha on 10 Oct. 1942. Stolpersteine were laid for them at Löwenstrasse 52 (see Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Eppendorf).

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