27.01.2023 Holocaust-Gedenktag in der Pfarrkirche Leiden Christi in Obermenzing
Call them by name:
remembering the victims of the Shoah from Obermenzing
Dr. phil. Paul Bornstein born in 1868 in Berlin, lived in Obermenzing, Adolf-Hitler-Str.103 (renamed Verdistr.103) He was a writer, translator, historian and editor of the works of Friedrich Hebbel. He was married to Anna, née Zachmann, who was a Christian. Their only son was born in 1930. Since 1938 Dr. Bornstein lived from a very small pension and had to give up his literary profession because of health problems. He died on July 30th 1939 at the age of 71 years. (So far we have no photograph of him.)
Berthold Hirsch, born in 1890 in Vienna, a book dealer, lived in Ober-menzing from 1928 to 1941 in Apianstr. 8 (renamed Petergoerglstr. 8). During the Night of the Nazi-Pogrom (Nov. 9th 1938) he was imprisoned in Dachau. There he was forced to give up his property and to do forced labor for a construction firm. His plan for emigration to Shanghai failed. Together with about a thousand Jewish residents from Munich he was deported to Kaunas/ Lithuania on November 20th 1941 and killed on November 25th,
His brother Gustav Hirsch was born in 1883 in Pohrlitz/Moravia, where he attended a trade school and became a locksmith. From 1939 to 1941 he lived together with his wife Sidonie in his brother Berthold’s house in Obermenzing.
His wife Sidonie Hirsch, née Steinhauer, born in Vienna-Ottakring in 1885, was a professional designer of clothes. On November 20th 1941 she was deported with her husband to Kaunas and killed on November 25th 1941.
Six members of the Kahn family from Memmelsdorf in Lower-Franconia
had found refuge in 1939 in the house of their relatives Simon and Martha Kahn in Obermenzing in Apfelallee 2. While Simon Kahn and his family succeeded in emigrating to the US late in the fall of 1939, all six relatives were deported and killed. They lacked the funds for emigration.
Four family members were deported to Kaunas and killed on November 25th 1941:
Berthold Kahn, a merchant, born in Memmelsdorf in 1886,
his wife Mina Kahn, née Lemberger, born in Rexingen/Baden-Wuerttemberg in 1894 and their 15 year old son Manfred Kahn, born in Memmelsdorf in 1926, and
Carry Kahn, née Oppenheimer, born in Ernsbach/Baden-Wuerttemberg in 1885. She was the widow of Arthur Kahn, the oldest brother of Simon Kahn. Arthur had died under unclear circumstances during imprisonment in Ebern/Lower-Franconia in 1937.
Trina Kuttner, née Kahn, born in 1860 in Gleicherwiesen/Thuringia was an aunt of Simon Kahn. On June 25th 1942 she was deported to Theresienstadt where she died on March 6th 1943.
15 year old Julius Wassermann, born in 1926 in Muehlhausen/ Middle-Franconia, was a nephew of Simon Kahn. In 1939-1940 he also lived in the Kahn-house in Obermenzing. On April 4th, 1942 he was deported together with his mother Martha, née Kahn and his sister Margot to Piaski/ Poland and murdered on April 10th 1942.
There were a few survivors of the Shoah in Obermenzing:
Ernest Landau, born in Vienna in 1916, was a journalist. Until 1938 he published in various Austrian newspapers. Then he found refuge in Belgium joining the Resistance after German occupation. In 1940 his Odyssey through several concentration camps began. In April 1945 he was forced to participate in the Dachau death march. After his liberation by the American Army Landau lived in a DP-camp (DP = displaced persons). He was the first one to celebrate a wedding in the camp, getting married to another DP-member Lydia Simonowitz. From 1945 to 1952 the couple lived in Obermenzing in Waldhornstr. 18. After World War II Landau was one of the first journalists to report about the situation of Jewish survivors. In 1947 Landau founded the first German newspaper Neue Welt, a weekly paper for liberated Jews. He died in 2000 at the age of 84 years.
Frieda Schmid, née Schoendorff was born in 1883 in Hannover, where she got married in 1907 to Franz Schmid, a Christian. In 1937 they moved to Obermenzing, Menzingerstr.10. She was protected from deportation due to her so-called “privileged marriage” (being married to a Christian). She died in June 1944 at the age of 51 years, the cause of death: “unknown”.
Klara Mayr, née Jordan, born in 1891 in Munich, was persecuted as a Jew despite having been baptized catholic in 1912. She lived in a “privileged marriage “ in Doebereinerstrasse in Obermenzing. She was hidden in the monastery of the Blutenburg by the nuns of the order of the Englische Fraeulein thereby escaping deportation. Only her sister-in-law Frieda and her niece Ruth Jordan survived. Her mother and those siblings who could not emigrate were killed in Kaunas, Theresienstadt and Auschwitz. Klara died in Munich in 1977.
Her sister-in-law Frieda Jordan, née Raffler, a Christian, born in 1898 in Augsburg, could not follow her husband Arthur, an art dealer, and son Erich who had emigrated to the US in 1938, because of the beginning of World War II. Together with her daughter Ruth Jordan (“half-Jewish, born in 1926 in Munich) she went into hiding on a farm in the Bavarian countryside. On October 4th 1944 Frieda was killed during an air-raid. Her name is inscribed on a memorial plaque in the church of Leiden Christi (where this memorial took place). Her daughter Ruth Jordan survived hidden on the farm until she could finally join her father and brother in 1947 in the US. She converted to Judaism and later married an American Jew. She died in New York in 2003.
We reported on her life and on her courageous rescuer, the farmer, last year here in this church of Leiden Christi.
Source:
Geschichtswerkstatt Jüdisches Leben im Münchner Westen
January 27th 2025
A handout for history-students of the Grandl-Realschule, 9th and 10th grade