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Berta Mendel, 1937
© LAS

Berta Mendel * 1903

Herrengraben 31 (Hamburg-Mitte, Neustadt)

HIER WOHNTE
BERTA MENDEL
JG. 1903
EINGEWIESEN
HEILANSTALT LANGENHORN
"VERLEGT" 23.9.1940
BRANDENBURG
ERMORDET 23.9.1940
"AKTION T4"

Berta Mendel, born on 6 July 1903 in Hamburg, murdered on 23 Sept. 1940 in the Brandenburg/Havel euthanasia killing center

Stolperstein in Hamburg-Neustadt, at Herrengraben 37

Berta Mendel, born on 6 July 1903 in Hamburg, was the youngest daughter of the coal merchant Nathan Seligmann Moses Mendel and his wife Julie, née Leers.

Nathan Seligmann Moses Mendel was born on 17 Sept. 1853 in Altona. Julie Leers was also born there, on 11 Aug. 1860. They married on 27 Mar. 1885 in their native town. Both were of the Jewish faith.

With three children, Franziska, born on 18 Nov. 1885; Clara, born on 9 July 1887; and Moses, born on 31 Aug. 1888, the family moved in May 1890 to Herrengraben 39 in Hamburg’s Neustadt quarter, where Nathan Seligmann Mendel operated a coal trading business until the end of his life. The coal trade seems to have been successful, because Nathan Seligmann Mendel expanded the business and acquired the house at Herrengraben 39. The family’s residential address was henceforth Herrengraben 37/39, where the growth of the family continued with the birth of eight children: Gertha was born on 8 Oct. 1890; Wolf on 16 Mar. 1892; Minna on 20 Jan. 1894; Philipp on 1 June 1895; Marianne on 11 Oct. 1896; Harry on 20 Sept. 1898; Rosa on 12 Feb. 1900; and Berta on 6 July 1903. With the exception of Berta, all the children developed inconspicuously.

The father Nathan Seligmann died on 19 Feb. 1911, mother Julie on 18 Mar. 1921, in a sanatorium in Oberneuland near Bremen. Both were buried in the Jewish Cemetery on Ilandkoppel in Hamburg-Ohlsdorf.

Bertha Mendel remained unmarried. She worked as a domestic servant in Reinfeld in the Stormarn administrative district. A general practitioner practicing there referred her to the Neustadt State Sanatorium (Landesheilanstalt Neustadt) in Holstein on 1 Mar. 1937. His diagnosis has not been passed down. According to her patient file, consisting of only six sheets, she suffered from "delusions” and "misidentification of persons.” On 12 or 13 Sept. 1940, Berta Mendel was transferred from the Neustadt State Sanatorium to the Hamburg-Langenhorn "sanatorium and nursing home” ("Heil- und Pflegeanstalt” Hamburg-Langenhorn).

The transfer to the Hamburg-Langenhorn sanatorium and nursing home had the following background: In the spring/summer of 1940, the "euthanasia” headquarters in Berlin, located at Tiergartenstrasse 4, planned a special operation aimed against Jews in public and private sanatoriums and nursing homes. It had the Jewish persons living in the institutions registered and moved together in what were officially so-called collection institutions. The Hamburg-Langenhorn "sanatorium and nursing home” ("Heil- und Pflegeanstalt” Hamburg-Langenhorn) was designated the North German collection institution. All institutions in Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, and Mecklenburg were ordered to move the Jews living in their facilities there by 18 Sept. 1940.

After all Jewish patients from the North German institutions had arrived in Langenhorn, they were taken to Brandenburg/Havel on 23 Sept. 1940 together with the Jewish patients who had already lived there for some time.

The transport reached the city in the Mark (March) on the same day. In the part of the former penitentiary that had been converted into a gas-killing facility, people were immediately driven into the gas chamber and murdered with carbon monoxide. Only Ilse Herta Zachmann escaped this fate at first (see corresponding entry).

We do not know whether, and if so, when relatives became aware of Berta Mendel’s death. In all documented death notices, it was claimed that the person concerned had died in Chelm (Polish) or Cholm (German). Those murdered in Brandenburg, however, were never in Chelm/Cholm, a town east of Lublin. The former Polish sanatorium there no longer existed after SS units had murdered almost all patients on 12 Jan. 1940. Also, there was no German records office in Chelm. Its fabrication and the use of postdated dates of death served to disguise the killing operation and at the same time enabled the authorities to claim higher care expenses for periods extended accordingly.

The life stories of Berta Mendel’s numerous brothers and sisters as well as their family members are described in detail in the volume entitled Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Neustadt under the entry "Julie, Minna, Rosa Heilbut” and they are also published on the Internet at www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de. Therefore, only a short overview follows here:

Franziska, Berta’s oldest sister, married to the Lutheran Max Robert Rüdiger, was deported to Theresienstadt on 14 Feb. 1945 and was liberated there.

Clara Mendel married Julius Nathan, a furniture dealer who was also Jewish, in 1920. The couple had a son, Henry, born on 30 May 1924. The family was deported on 25 Oct. 1941 to the Litzmannstadt (Lodz) Ghetto, where Julius Nathan died on 21 May 1944. Clara Nathan was deported to the Kulmhof (Chelmno) extermination camp on 23 June 1944 and murdered there on the same day. Henry Nathan was the only one in his family who survived.

Moses Mendel remained unmarried. He was killed in action during the First World War near St. Remy (Provence) in France on 24 Apr. 1915.

Berta’s sister Gertha married Ludwig Seligsohn and had five children with him, three of whom died in infancy. Ludwig and Gertha Seligsohn, who in the very end had been committed to the "Jews’ house” ("Judenhaus”) at the former Kleine Papagoyenstrasse 11 in Hamburg-Altona, and their thirteen-year-old son Walter were transported to the Minsk Ghetto on 8 Nov. 1941, where they were probably murdered. Hermann Seligsohn, Berta Mendel’s nephew, was deported to the so-called Brandenburg/Havel State Asylum (Landes-Pflegeanstalt Brandenburg/Havel) on 23 Sept. 1940, where she was murdered with carbon monoxide on the same day. It is not known whether Berta Mendel and Hermann Seligsohn knew each other. Hermann Seligsohn’s biography can be found in this collection of entries.

Wolf Mendel was married to Wanda Gonsiorowski. Nothing is known about any children from the marriage. He died on 24 Apr. 1937 in the Israelite Hospital. Wanda Mendel’s fate is unknown.

In 1925, Minna Mendel had married Jacob Gottschalk Simon Heilbut, also a Jew. The couple had two daughters, Julie Elfriede, born on 12 Aug. 1934, and Rosa Charlotte, born on 12 Dec. 1935. Minna Heilbut and her daughters were deported to Riga on 8 Dec. 1941 and perished there. Jacob Gottschalk Simon Heilbut had been taken into "protective custody” ("Schutzhaft”) during the so-called "June operation” (Juni-Aktion) of 1938. He was released on the condition that he leave Germany immediately. He managed to escape to Britain.

Marianne Mendel lived with her sister Gertha Seligsohn and her family at Cremon 24. She died on 8 May 1923 in the Israelite Hospital.

Rosa Mendel emigrated to the USA. Her brothers Harry and Philipp Mendel had been imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp on 9 Nov. 1938 and released on condition that they leave Germany. Their sister Rosa enabled Harry and Philipp and his wife Auguste, née Stein, as well as their son to enter the United States.

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

© Ingo Wille

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 6; AB; StaH 133-1 III Staatsarchiv III, 3171-2/4 U.A. 4, Liste psychisch kranker jüdischer Patienten der psychiatrischen Anstalt Langenhorn, die aufgrund nationalsozialistischer "Euthanasie"-Maßnahmen ermordet wurden, zusammengestellt von Peter von Rönn, Hamburg (Projektgruppe zur Erforschung des Schicksals psychisch Kranker in Langenhorn); 332-5 Standesämter 13927 Geburtsregister Nr. 164/1903 Berta Mendel; Landesarchiv Schleswig LAS Abt. 377 Nr. 9067; schriftliche Auskunft des ehemaligen Arztes des Heilanstalt Neustadt Dr. Friedrich Ernst Struwe, vom 31.1.2017. Faludi, Christian, Die Juni-Aktion 1938, Frankfurt 2013. Struwe, Friedrich Ernst, Landesheilanstalt Neustadt in Holstein. Berichte aus den Jahren 1918–1945, Heiligenhafen 2013. (Quellenangaben zu Berta Mendels Geschwistern siehe demnächst in "Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Neustadt", Julie Heilbut und andere).
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