Hermann Einstein

Date of Birth:
01.08.1880, Kriegshaber
Deceased:
Todestag nicht bekannt, Auschwitz

Residencies

Augsburg, Ulmer Straße 151
Augsburg, Ulmer Straße 139
Augsburg, Ulmer Straße 121
Augsburg, Ulmer Straße 228

Last voluntary residence

Places of persecution

Deportation
from Augsburg
via Munich-Berg am Laim
to Auschwitz
on 8 or 9 March 1943

Memorial sign

On 29 June 2017, a remembrance post for Hermann and Mina Einstein was installed at Ulmer Straße 139.

Biography

Hermann Einstein was born in Kriegshaber on August 1, 1880. In 1911, he married Mina Schlossberger from Unterdeufstetten near Crailsheim in present-day Baden-Württemberg. Together with five of his brothers, he ran the "Gebrüder Einstein" cattle business. The family business was one of the leading cattle trading companies in Swabia until the National Socialists took power. Hermann Einstein was responsible for the company branch in Schongau.

Hermann and Mina Einstein lived in an apartment at Ulmer Straße 151 since their marriage. Their daughter Brunhilde was born on January 30, 1916.

After the National Socialists came to power, the Einstein brothers were initially able to continue their cattle business despite calls for a boycott, but they had to deal with ever greater losses in sales. Despite open discrimination by the government, the brothers initially did not feel seriously threatened and therefore did not plan to emigrate.

In July 1937, Mina and Hermann Einstein moved to Ulmer Straße 139. The house of Hermann's brother Ludwig Einstein who had died the year before, was also the headquarters of the family business until the liquidation of the business at the end of 1938. After Ludwig Einstein's death, the house became the property of his son Max, who had lived in South Africa since 1926 and had become a citizen of the South African Union.

The events of November 1938 made the Einstein brothers aware of their situation. They decided to leave Germany together, as they could not imagine emigrating separately. Despite intensive efforts, however, they did not find a country that would accept them all together. Mina and Hermann Einstein's daughter Brunhilde managed to escape to Great Britain in 1939. For her parents and relatives in Kriegshaber, the situation deteriorated more and more. From the beginning of 1940, Hermann Einstein, like his brothers, was made to work for Augsburg companies as a forced laborer.

In January 1942, Mina and Hermann Einstein moved to Ulmer Straße 121, to the house of Hermann's brother Samuel who had died three years earlier. This move was possibly forced onto them, since the house at Ulmer Strasse 139 was signed over to the German Reich at the end of 1941. Property of foreign Jews, however, could only be expropriated in exceptional cases with the approval of the Ministry of Economics of the Reich. Therefore, the transfer had to be revoked later.

Mina and Hermann Einstein lived at Ulmer Straße 121 with Samuel's widow Camilla until she was deported to Piaski in April 1942. Less than four months later, Mina and Ida's mother Ernestine Schlossberger was taken to Theresienstadt.

In September 1942, Mina and Heinrich Einstein were forced to move into a so-called Judenhaus. Since then they lived in the apartment on the ground floor of the synagogue in Kriegshaber, which had become a forced shelter for Jews, together with Hermann's brother Moriz Einstein and his wife Lydia, who had already been forcibly quartered there before. The two couples were taken to Munich on March 8 or 9, 1943, together with Isak and Ida Einstein. After five days in the Berg am Laim camp, they were all deported to Auschwitz and murdered there.

Mina’s and Ida's mother, Ernestine Schlossberger, died in Theresienstadt on November 1, 1943.

Translated by Wolfgang Poeppel

Relatives
Sources and literature
Internet:
Literature:

Monika Müller, „Es ist ein hartes Los, das uns getroffen hat.“ Der Weg der Familie Einstein aus Augsburg-Kriegshaber (Lebenslinien. Deutsch-jüdische Familiengeschichten Bd. 5), Augsburg 2012.

Josua Neumann, Mina Einstein. Ungedruckte Seminararbeit, Universität Augsburg, Wintersemester 2013/2014.

Maximilian Strnad, Zwischenstation "Judensiedlung". Verfolgung und Deportation der jüdischen Münchner 1941 – 1945 (Studien zur jüdischen Geschichte und Kultur in Bayern, Bd. 4), München 2011.