Hasja Arolowitsch
* 1898

Hasja Arolowitsch, née Langer, born 6 Dec. 1989, deported 6 December 1941 to Riga

Hasja was a citizen of Latvia, married to Nathan Arolowitsch, who owned a shoe repair shop. The couple lived with their two children Rosa (1924) and Leopold (1931) on Isestraße and later on Eppendorfer Landstraße.

Nathan Arolowitsch emigrated to Buenos Aires on 31 August 1938, and the children were able to leave Germany in April 1939. Hasja remained behind. Unlike other Jews, she was not forced to add the name Sara to her given name, probably because of her Latvian citizenship. Evidently the couple had planned for Hasja (in some documents written as Kasja) to join her husband or her children at a later point, since she applied for permission to emigrate although she was practically destitute.

After she had been classified as needy, a Jewish relief organization (Hilfsverein der Juden in Deutschland) agreed to finance her travel expenses. An entry in her tax records with the Hamburg Jewish Community, dated 7 October 1940, states “Relief organization will pay passage, foreigner.”

She did not emigrate, however. The few surviving documents leave it unclear as to the reason – she may not have been granted a visa, she may not have been able to find passage, or there may have been other reasons. Her last address was Rothenbaumchaussee 73, from where she was deported to Riga. She was murdered near the town of her birth, Daugavgrīva.

Translator: Amy Lee
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.