Röschen Wertheim
* 1877

Röschen Wertheim, née Stein, born on 19 Dec. 1877 in Neustadtgödens, deported on 6 Dec. 1941 to Riga, murdered

Grindelallee 134

Röschen Wertheim was the widow of the Jewish merchant Simon Wertheim, who died in Münster in 1925. Her children were Edith (born in 1902), Alfred (born in 1904), and Paul (born in 1913). All three managed to emigrate, the sons to Palestine, the daughter to the USA. In Osnabrück, Röschen Wertheim together with her brother Gustav Stein and her son Alfred Wertheim were owners of the S. Wertheim department store at Grosse Strasse 80/81 in the center of the city. The family also owned a house at Martinistrasse 28 in Osnabrück. The department store was “Aryanized” in Nov. 1935 and the residential building was expropriated in 1938.

In 1937, Röschen Wertheim moved to her daughter Edith in Hamburg. She had married Viktor Herzfeld in 1927. The two children Fritz-Ludwig and Margret were born in 1928 and 1929, respectively. However, the marriage failed and was divorced in 1933. Since Edith did not receive any financial support from her husband, she trained as a physiotherapist. However, she was only able to continue the training she had started in Germany in Sweden, where she graduated with a diploma.

In 1934, Edith Herzfeld returned to Hamburg. For a short time, she resided as a subtenant with Bachrach at Feldbrunnenstrasse 18. Then she moved with her children to a three-bedroom apartment at Grindelallee 7. She earned her living with Swedish medical massages. Since she was only allowed to treat Jewish patients, more and more of whom were leaving Germany, she saw no perspective for herself and emigrated to the USA with her children in May 1938. Röschen Wertheim gave her 6,000 RM (reichsmark) of the small remainder of her fortune as starting capital.

She herself stayed behind in Hamburg. She had to move out of her previous apartment. Until the deportation, Röschen Wertheim lived in a room at Grindelallee 134 as a subtenant of the Hirsch family. On 6 Dec. 1941, she was deported to Riga-Jungfernhof. It is not known exactly when she died there.

In Osnabrück, too, a Stolperstein commemorates Röschen Wertheim today. It is located in front of her former residential building at Martinistrasse 28.

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