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III. Buildings Integral to the Former Life and/or Persecution of Jews in Hamburg - Rotherbaum II/Harvestehude.
No. 76 Hallerstraße.
Location:
Oberrabbiner Dr. Joseph Carlebach (1883-1942) und seine Familie. Zusammen mit seiner Frau und vier seiner neun Kinder gehörte er zu den Hamburger Juden, die am 6.12.1941 mit einem der ersten Transporte in den Osten deportiert wurden. Das Ehepaar Carlebach und drei seiner Töchter wurden dort ermordet.
Transport:
Lotte Carlebach:"Each child of mine is my only child."
Lotte Carlebach, née Preuss, born 16 December 1900, married Rabbi Dr. Joseph Carlebach on 1 January 1919, shortly after her eighteenth birthday. Her father Julius Preuss had the medical title of "Kaiserlichen Sanitätsrat" (Imperial Medical Consultant) which would have been a grand title in imperial Berlin. However, Julius Preuss did not apply it to his practice plate as he wished to attend the poor, and such a title would have only detered them and given the impression that he was a particularly expensive doctor. He was also an academic researcher into Biblical-Talmudic medicine. The Preuss family were members of the strickly orthodox Adaß-Jisroel (Israelitische Synagogen-Gemeinschaft), known simply as Adaß (Israelite Synagogue Association). This not only prescribed a ritual kosher kitchen that strictly separated meat from milk products, strict compliance to the Sabbath and festivals, but also daily prayers, and the esteem and cultivation and deepening of the learnings of Jewish religious sources, in german and with contemporary german commmentaries. This included orthodox women and girls. His eldest daughter, Chana-Elischewa Charlotte-Helena, adopted this commitment to the needy. The two hebrew and two german names indicated that the family professed to being Jewish and German. Lotte, the short form of Charlotte, as she was called by the family, adopted this profession to Judaism and to being German. The year at the sick bed of her father and the example of her mother's devoted love for her brilliant, sick father contributed to moulding Lotte's attitude to life. Dr. Joseph Carlebach, rabbi and academic, was a frequent visitor of the family, and taught Lotte at the Margarethenlyzeum Berlin. She considered him a genius. He was so attracted to Lotte that he did everything in his power to teach her class. As a soldier he was posted to distant Lithuania, but the separation from Lotte only intensified his love and, when on a visit to Berlin, he asked for her hand in marriage. As Lotte's father had died some years previously, her mother was confronted with the bewildering surprise alone. Joseph Carlebach had two academic qualifications, a doctorate in mathematics and a rabbi diploma, was from the most esteemed rabbi family in Germany, was an educationalist with world experience, and known in all social circles. Frau Preuss consulted Rabbi Dr. Ezra Munk, the guardian of her children, and he referred to the First Book of Moses (Genesis): 24.57; And they said, we will call the damsel, and enquire at her mouth. Lotte asked for twelve hours to reflect and shut herself in her room with a german language edition of instructive and biblical works by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch. On coming out she consented to the proposal.
One year after the death of his father, Joseph Carlebach succeeded him as rabbi in Lübeck. It was a difficult period for his young wife, as she was compared with her dominant mother-in-law, who had, over many years, been a formative influence on the life of the community. And so when Dr. Joseph Carlebach was offered the position as director of the Talmud Tora Realschule in Hamburg she encouraged him to accept. In Hamburg the rabbi family were able to develop their individual way of life. It was not a quiet life as there were soon nine children in the family. The parents were influenced by modern pedagogical ideas and in agreement that the children should be brought up to be self reliant and individualistic. Traditionally orientated community members thought the "nine Carlebach childred were rather naughty". However, the children did not merely enjoy their freedom but also, quite naturally, assumed tasks in the rabbi household, where visitors frequently came for meals, and Lotte Carlebach nursed sick relatives and members of the community back to health. Lotte also undertook many visits to the sick despite being more than fully occupied with her large family and housework.
First Row: Peter, Noemi, Lotte Carlebach, Baby, Buli. Second Row: Mirjam, Ruthi, Eva, Esher, Judith. During the time Dr. Carlebach was director of the Talmud Tora Realschule he bacame simultaneously Chief-Rabbi of Altona and Schleswig-Holstein, the family living at No. 2 Bieberstraße. There were four addresses in Altona where the family lived: No. 120 Palmaille, No. 39 Behnstraße, No. 57 Palmaille and No. 25 Klopstockstraße, before the family finally moved to No. 76 Hallerstraße, when, in February 1936, Dr. Joseph Carlebach was chosen as Chief-Rabbi of Hamburg.
The Carlebach's were a happy, loving family in which there was much singing and laughter. An amusing story from school was given as much attention by the parents as the latest mark for mathematics. The children became integrated into the Jewish community without obligation or constraint. Miriam Carlebach recalls: "My Jewishness was quite natural and genuinely wonderful; I loved the Sabbath and feast days, the Hebrew prayer-book, all the religious laws, school, and naturally my parents, who embodied the familiar Jewish atmosphere." Lotte Carlebach was always prepared for visitors and entertained with warm-heartedness. The children particularly remember Succot (Feast of Tabernacles). A Succah was built in the garden of No. 76 Hallerstraße, with a double roof, the prescribed roof of fir branches, and an adjustable roof of roofing felt that could be pulled into place when it rained or was windy. The essential thing was that the benediction of the wine was said with open roof, even when raining, and then the soup to be ladeled out as quickly as possible before the fallen fir needles stuck to the pastry cases filled with chopped meat that filled the soup."
they are all from one mother, and they are all normal."
Family life altered fundamentally with the takeover of power by the Nazis. More and more distressed
people desired consultation with the rabbi, full of despair and helplessness in the face of the
series of anti-Jewish regulations, the arrest of their husbands, or violent assault by the
SA (Storm Troopers). Lotte listened to their problems and calmed them so that they were better
prepared to accept the sometimes difficult advice given by her husband. She knew how to calm her
own husband too and to demonstrate, with humour and gentle smiles, that it was not worth becoming
overly agitated by small matters especially in such times of regulated state persecution. Those without accommodation were put up for several nights in the crowded Carlebach flat. Like all other Jewish families in Germany, in the face of the Nazi terror, the Carlebach's also considered whether to emigrate. However, as ever more rabbis departed Germany so the "moral obligation" to stand by the Jewish community became stronger. Lotte Carlebach fought to see that four of her elder children, Eva, Ester, Buli and Judith, emigrated to England. Miriam Carlebach initiated and made all the necessary arrangements to emigrate to Palestine alone. She attended the Wilhelminenhöhe summer camp in Blankenese as preparation for life in Palestine. She visited and acquired all the requisit papers from the numerous civil service departments. Only hours before emigration Miriam was summoned by the Gestapo and interogated about her father's ficticious foreign currency. She was released with only enough time to go directly to the railway station. This was a final separation and was without a family farewell. The outbreak of the Second World War thwarted all plans for further children, or the entire rest of the family, to emigrate. Finally, after all their suffering, the remaining members of the Carlebach family, Dr. Joseph Carlebach, his wife Lotte, and the four youngest children, Peter, Ruthi, Noemi and Sara (Baby), were deported to the Jungfernhof concentration camp near Riga, in Latvia.
Shortly before being deported East, the family were able to send a post
card to relatives, which related: Only Peter survived. He experienced four years of internment in nine different concentration camps. Today, following in his father's footsteps, he is a rabbi in America. Lotte Carlebach's favourite song, which she was sometimes persuaded to sing, turned out to be prophetic:
Schneeglöckchen, Schneeglöckchen
Literature: Gillis-Carlebach, Miriam: Jedes Kind ist mein Einziges, Lotte Carlebach-Preuss, Antlitz einer Mutter und Rabbiner-Frau, Dölling und Galitz Verlag, Hamburg, 1997. Vieth, Harold: Hier lebten sie miteinander in Harvestehude-Rotherbaum, Jüdische Schicksale - Alltägliches Heutiges, Selbsverlag, Hamburg, 1993. (Bezug: Harold Vieth, Hallerstraße 8, 20146 Hamburg.)
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