Helene Löwenthal
* 1864

Helene Löwenthal, née Isaac, born on 31 Aug. 1864, deported on 19 July 1942 to Theresienstadt

Helene Löwenthal was born on 31 Aug. 1864 as the seventh child of Isaac Joseph Isaac and Pauline Levin. She was 25 years old when she married Eduard Löwenthal. He came from Rehna in Mecklenburg, where he was born on 16 May 1862. The marriage produced four children: John (born in 1890), Kurt Iwan (in 1893), Esther Edda (in 1894), and Walter Bernhard (in 1898).

In 1879, the more liberal political climate in the German Reich enabled Eduard Löwenthal to change his place of residence, to Hamburg. There, he apparently completed an apprenticeship as an assistant commercial clerk. Initially, he worked as a sales assistant for Rappold und Söhne, a renowned company back then. When he died of the results of a stroke on 4 Jan. 1938, the registrar noted that he had been a retired department head. Thus, he was spared the fate of Nazi persecution.

One can only surmise just how disappointed Eduard would have been about the National Socialist political development. As a “good German,” he had not only shown deep respect for his regional Duke of Mecklenburg. In terms of his national identity, he only came into his own in the person of the [German] ruler at the time, Emperor Wilhelm II. This identification must have gone so far that after the resignation of the famous chancellor [in discord with the monarch], the word “Bismarck” became an invective to him.

As established by documentary evidence, the apartments of the Löwenthals were located at Am kleinen Schäferkamp 35 c in 1898, at Eppendorfer Weg 62 in 1913, and at Schäferkampsallee 41 in 1938, where they lived for several years. After the death of her husband, Helene had to look for a smaller apartment. She ended up in a room at Lehmweg 9. Just shortly before then, this must have become the residence of her uncle James, who prior to that had lived at Bismarckstrasse 11 for decades and operated his newsstand there. Helene continued to suffer from severe persecution by the Nazi rulers. Her last residential address was the “Jews’ house” (“Judenhaus“) at Wohlersallee 58. One can gather a bit of these circumstances from the surviving records of the Hamburg Jewish Community. The second leaf of the Community’s tax file card was rewritten to “Helene Wwe. [widow]” (after Eduard’s death). At the end of the card, one finds the (undated) remarks: “60 RM tax free. Receives pension of 150 RM monthly from 1 Jan. 1938 onward. Son in prison. Pension lost.” Moreover, the card contains a note saying that she had not received any severance pay on which to live. Therefore, the Community decided on “tax free” status.

At the bottom of the leaf, a stamp indicates “Wohlf.” This means nothing else than that the process of deprivation of rights and dispossession by the Nazis had resulted in her being dependent on support from “welfare” (today: social assistance), even though her deceased husband had provided for a financially secure retirement. Accordingly, she was forced to change apartments several times, before eventually ending up in a single room as a subtenant. On the back of the second leaf, she is classified as “0” as of 1941. The remarks reveal that she had neither an income nor any assets.

According to the entry on the file card, Helene “retired due to outmigration” on 19 July 1942. What the employee of the Jewish Community wished to euphemize by using these terms was in reality a cruel story. In fact, on 19 July 1942, one of the largest deportation trains departed Moorweide in Hamburg for Theresienstadt. Helene Löwenthal was on this train. Family members living in the vicinity gathered at her place on the eve of the deportation, accompanying her to Moorweide the following day. Ludwig with Magda and Lotti were there. Certainly, daughter Edda with her husband was present as well. James Isaac was deported to Theresienstadt on the same transport.

Helene Löwenthal was Dieter Guderian’s grandmother

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