No. 9 Hartungstraße

In 1903 the Henry-Jones-Loge (Henry Jones Lodge) acquired the villa at No. 9 Hartungstraße, belonging to the Jewish businessman Pfennig, and the adjacent property in the Rotherbaum district of Hamburg, and founded a Jewish Masonic Lodge. The Henry-Jones-Loge was named after Heinrich Jonas, Jewish citizen of Hamburg who had emigrated to America and, in 1843 in New York, founded B'nai B'rith, the Jewish fraternal organization with moral, philanthropic, social, educational, and political aims.

In 1904 the building was opened and became a focal point of German-Jewish community life in the Grindel Quarter of Hamburg. The first German Zionist Congress was held there in 1909.

The Henry-Jones-Loge, Nos 9-11 Hartungstraße, 1904.

       

President's seat.                                                                       Restaurant.

In 1930 the building was sold to the Anthroposophic Society that permitted Jewish organizations further use of the building. The Anthroposophic Society was dissolved at the end of 1935.
In 1937, at the order of the Gestapo, the building was sold to the Jüdische Gemeinschaftshaus GmbH that converted it to the Jüdische Kulturbund Hamburg/Hamburg Jewish Arts Federation. The 1933 founded Jüdische Kulturbund was a compulsory organisation of Jewish artistes who were only permitted to perform before a Jewish audience. Following the pogrom of the night of 9/10. November 1938 (so-called Kristallnacht) the building also substituted for the destroyed synagogues. It was also a venue for theatre and film.

Entrance hall of the Jüdische Gemeinschaftshaus, February 1938.

In 1941 the Jüdische Kulturbund was dissolved by the Gestapo. The building became a provisions depot for the deportation of Hamburg Jews to the concentration and death camps. In 1942 it was the assembly place for the transport of Hamburg Jews to Auschwitz.

In 1943, due to bomb damage, the Thalia Theatre opened an alternative stage here. As with all theatres in Germany this was closed in July 1944.

Before the end of the war screening of Ufa films took place here. Directly after the war the building was named the "Savoy" by the British Military Government, and functioned as a cabaret, and casino for officers.

On 10. December 1945 Ida Ehre (1901-1989), daughter of a Jewish chief cantor, who had survived the National Socialist tyranny by being in a "privileged mixed marriage" with an "Aryan" Hamburg doctor, opened her Hamburger Kammerspiele theatre with the american dramatist Robert Ardrey's "Leuchtfeuer" (Navigational Light).

Ida Ehre.

In her memoirs "Gott hat einen größeren Kopf, mein Kind ..." published in 1985, Ida Ehre, looking back over 40 years of her Hamburger Kammerspiele theatre writes: "These years were both a continuous joy and (financial) worry for me, but it was no longer necessary to feel fear. Fear was a constant companion during all the barbaric and tyrannical years of National Socialism. I am no heroine, I was always aware that something could happen to me".

The commemorative plaque below is to be found on the gate post of No. 74 Hallerstraße:


Struan Robertson