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Therese Taube Nathan (née Rubin) * 1867

Mattentwiete 6 (Hamburg-Mitte, Hamburg-Altstadt)

HIER WOHNTE
THERESE TAUBE
NATHAN
GEB. RUBIN
JG. 1867
GEDEMÜTIGT / ENTRECHTET
FLUCHT IN DEN TOD
12.4.1941

Therese Taube Nathan, née Rubin, born 19 Apr. 1867 in Hamburg, took her own life 12 Apr. 1941 in Hamburg

Mattentwiete 6 (Mattentwiete 18)

On 12 Apr. 1941 at 9:30 a.m. the custodian from Mattentwiete 18, the widow Anna Dehnkamp, appeared at the 37th Police Station at Schaarsteinweg 5 and reported her suspicion that her neighbor and owner of her building, Therese Nathan, may have met with some misfortune. She smelled a strong smell of gas and Ms. Nathan did not open the door when she banged on it repeatedly. She also found it strange that the bread rolls from the previous day were still hanging on the door. Police officers who had broken into her apartment found the 73-year-old widow Therese Nathan lying dead in a suitcase she had made into a bed. She had poisoned herself with coal gas.

Anna Dehnkamp gave in her statement that "Frau Nathan” had indeed complained about bad times, in part because she no longer had anyone here, but after she received a letter from her son in Columbia, she said things would get better. "Frau Nathan never told me that she wanted to end her life.”

Therese Nathan was born in Hamburg on 19 Apr. 1867 and grew up in Hamburg’s Neustadt. Her parents, the gilder Scheftel Heimann Rubin (born 11 May 1832, died 28 Sept. 1913) and Frieda, née Nathan (born 9 Mar. 1845, died 9 Mar. 1923), gave their daughter the Jewish name Taube. Taube later turned into Therese. While her father came from Vilnius, which at the time belonged to Russia and today is the capital of Lithuania, her mother Frieda came from the garrison town Rendsburg which belonged to Denmark back then. Her parents’ marriage did not last, however. On 7 Mar. 1877, Frieda Rubin married a second time, the non-Jewish "finery and Dutch wares dealer” Heinrich Ernst (born 25 Nov. 1844). Until her own wedding, Therese lived with them at Valentinskamp 64.

Scheftel Rubin also married a second time, on 10 Nov. 1879 the Jewish Rahlchen Herzberg (born 7 Oct. 1844, died 18 Mar. 1895). As of 1884, the couple lived at the Lazarus Gumpel Foundation at Schlachterstraße 46/47, House 6.

On 9 Sept. 1892, Therese married the merchant Eduard Nathan, born on 7 July 1867 in Rendsburg. It’s possible that her groom, the son of Nathan Moses Nathan and Rebecka, née Meyer, was a distant relative of her mother. Eduard Nathan had come to Hamburg from Damascus in Oct. 1890 and ran a store selling Dutch goods, first at Deichstraße 23, then at Caffamacherreihe 23 and at Valentinskamp 24.

Their first child, daughter Bella, was born on 17 Sept. 1893, Julius Hermann followed on 4 Nov. 1895 at Valentinskamp. He died on 11 Aug. 1902 when he was only six years old. Their youngest child, Manfred, was born on 7 Feb. 1902 at Kleinen Gärtnerstraße 85 (today Stresemannstraße) in Altona. Eduard Nathan specialized as a wholesale trader of shoe leather soles. In 1906 he owned two leather warehouses at Hopfenmarkt 18/20 and am Brook 8. From that point on, the Nathan Family lived back in Hamburg, first at Hahnentrapp 6, then at Hopfenmarkt 28 and in 1910 at Mattentwiete 21.

In about 1916 Eduard Nathan opened a second branch in Berlin-Charlottenburg at Rosenstraße 17, his private address was at Clausewitzstraße 8.

In 1922 Eduard Nathan acquired a building in Hamburg’s Altstadt at Cremon 10, the following year he added the four adjacent buildings at Mattentwiete 14 to 20.

His son-in-law David Schneemann (born 11 May 1891) had been a co-owner of the company since 1924 and took over the Berlin business. In 1928 the Berlin address book listed him as the sole owner at Bleibtreustraße 45.

Eduard Nathan was last listed in the Berlin address book in 1932 with a wholesale leather business at Neue Friedrichstraße 27. That same year his wife Therese was listed at the address Clausewitzstraße 8.

Presumably Therese Nathan moved back to Hamburg following her husband’s death. Exactly when Eduard Nathan died could not be determined. By then their daughter Bella and her husband David Schneemann had moved to London with their children. Her brother Manfred had married Elsbeth Bieber in Berlin on 2 Dec. 1933 and immigrated to Medellín in northwestern Columbia. The buildings on Mattentwiete had already been transferred to the names of their children Bella Schneemann and Manfred Nathan in 1931. Administration of the buildings was taken over by the estate agent John Elias, later the company Grube & Wasskewitz under the authority of the Hamburg Property Management of 1938.

In the end, Therese Nathan lived in very impoverished circumstances from 27 Reich Marks (RM) a month because the properties on Mattentwiete allegedly were "heavily polluted”. Since her situation had become hopeless, she took her life on 12 Apr. 1941.

Her children Bella and Manfred were stripped of their German citizenship in accordance with decree number 11 of the Reich Citizens Act of 25 Nov. 1941. Their property on Mattentwiete reverted to the German Reich and was destroyed in the air strikes on Hamburg ("Operation Gomorrha”) in July/Aug. 1943.

Therese Nathan was buried at Ilandkoppel Jewish Cemetery in Ohlsdorf where her son Manfred Nathan was also laid to rest 38 years later.

Translator: Suzanne von Engelhardt
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: April 2020
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: 1; 2; 4; 9; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 2797 u 953/1892; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 2307 u 2338/1893; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 2376 u 3753/1895; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 5251 u 1442/1902; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 13242 u 2735/1979; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 690 u 532/1913; StaH 331-5 Polizeibehörde-Unnatürliche Sterbefälle 3 Akte 1941/516; StaH 314-15 OFP V1/221; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden 385; http://www.jüdischer-friedhof-altona.de/img/Datenbanken/ilandkoppel_grabregister.pdf (Zugriff 12.3.2016); diverse Hamburger und Berliner Adressbücher.
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