61 LOEWENTHAL Lazarus Hopfenhandel

Letterhead of Marx Löwenthal

(Archive: Michael Schick)

Nathanja Hüttenmeister commented this as follows: „Lazarus, whose Jewish name is registered in the death registry as Elieser, son of Benjamin, was ,found dead’ and was buried two days later. The entry of the cause of death in the death registry has an addition in Hebrew, which says that Lazarus committed suicide.“3)

From the subsequent bancruptcy proceedings Berthold Friedberger, the son-in-law who had just recently married Lazarus’ daughter Elise, acquired the house with the hops warehouse on March 1st, 1902.

The couple later moved to Radstraße 25 and again auctioned off the property in the Kapellenstraße 64. The Jewish horse dealer Emanuel Kahn, called Emil, a well-respected business man in Laupheim (see page 312), received the winning bid.

After Crystal Night (Reichspogromnacht) of November 9 to 10, 1938 he was taken to the concentration camp in Dachau at the order of the Gestapo, together with 16 Jewish businesspeople. Released from “preventive custody” („Schutzhaft”), he sold his property in the same year: 50 percent to Peter Wassermann of Memmingen, and 50 percent to Josef Rebholz of Memmingen, later Laupheim.

In 1943 the purchase contract was reissued again after previous restitution of the estate.

After the suicide of her husband Lazarus and the foreclosure auction in 1902, Leopoldine (Lina) Löwenthal moved to the house of her father Nathan Löwenthal (on the opposite side of the street), whose wife Frederike, née Mayer, had died in 1894.

When Nathan Löwenthal died on February 16, 1905, his daughter Lina, together with her five sisters inherited the house in the Kapellenstraße 63. Her single sister Jeanette, born on April 1st, 1862, who was living there, was given the right to live in a corner room on the upper floor.

In 1930, after the master baker Kaspar Fetzer bought the house, the two sisters moved next door to the Kapellenstraße 65. Jeanette died on May 27, 1939 in Laupheim, and Lina, after 40 years of widowhood, died on September 19, 1941 in the nursing home Heggbach, at 90 years old.

She was a modest woman. On the occasion of her 80^th birthday we can read in the Jewish community newspaper:

„One of those increasingly rare dignified women, whose religion and house, family and community still formed the core of her quietly modest pious life!“4)

By their deaths, both sisters were spared the horrors of deportation.

The Children:

The couple Lazarus and Lina Löwenthal had two daughters:

Hermine, married to Max Strauß, merchant in Bruchsal. (Her whereabouts are unknown.)

Elise, married to Berthold Friedberger, cattle dealer and city counselor in the 24 Radstraße . After the foreclosure of their house and the death of her husband in 1941, shortly before his 75th birthday, Elise Friedberger was moved to the Wendelinsgrube.

On August 19, 1942 she was deported with the last, the fourth deportation, first to the concentration camp in Theresienstadt and from there, on May 6, 1944 on a liquidation transport to Auschwitz where she was murdered. (See Berthold Friedberger family starting on Page 209.)

Sources:

1) Letter from 20.12.1987 to Henry Lowen, Denver.

2) Josef K. Braun, „Altlaupheimer Bilderbogen“, Vol. II, page 168.

3) „Der Jüdische Friedhof Laupheim“, page 425, Nathanja Nüttenmeister.

4) „"Der Jüdische Friedhof Laupheim“, page 523 / G/GW 13/1931, page 147.