Scherek Arbol » Clara Brasch (1867-1942)

Persoonlijke gegevens Clara Brasch 

• Zij is geboren op 25 mei 1867 in Berlin, Brandenburg, Germany.
• Woonachtig op 19 juli 1943: deported to Theresienstadt.
• Zij is overleden op 18 november 1942 in Theresienstadt Concentration Camp, zij was toen 75 jaar oud.
• Een kind van Louis Brasch en Sara Friedemann

Gezin van Clara Brasch

Zij is getrouwd met Julius Ohnstein.

Zij zijn getrouwd op 31 oktober 1891 te Wroclaw, Silesia, Poland, zij was toen 24 jaar oud.

Kind(eren):

1. Lucie Ohnstein  1893-1991 

Notities over Clara Brasch

"What can I possibly tell you about my grandmotherss She led a simple life, had no income of her own and had to live off of the uWohleu u welfare as they called it back then. Once in a while she embroidered monograms on handkerchiefs and bed linens and earned 15 cents per item. You could buy 5 rolls with that back then."

When Otto G. Schade, at the age of 88, gave me this information in Mar. 2009, his remarks coincided with my understanding of Clara Ohnsteinus simple life at Borgfelderstraue 23. I had gained my information from the few remaining sources available. However she had led another life before that modest one began.

Clara Ohnstein was born on 25 May 1867 as Clara Brasch in Berlin, where her parents Louis Brasch and his wife Sara, nue Friedemann, lived as assimilated Jews. Four years later, on 15 January 1871, her brother Max Leo Brasch was born. Her mother died before the children were of age. From the age of nineteen Clara lived in the household of her wealthy uncle Emil Brasch in Breslau. Her father Louis Brasch married in second marriage his sister-in-law Ida Friedemann, a sister of Sara. He died in April 1891 in Berlin, half a year before Clara's wedding.
Clara Brasch, now 24 years old, entered into marriage on 31 Oct. 1891 with Julius Ohnstein, twelve years her senior, and moved to Hamburg where he lived. Julius Ohnstein came from Pleschen where he was born on 24 Dec. 1854 and which at the time was in the Prussian province of Posen. His parents, Pincus Ohnstein and Bertha, nue Flatau, were also assimilated Jews. Julius was the oldest of their eight sons and two daughters.
Julius Ohnstein became a merchant and served his military duty in the unit Landsturm I.

In 1883 he moved to Hamburg. He ran a successful "liqueur factoryu at Zippelhaus 10, the earnings of which made it possible for him to request Hamburg citizenship in Dec. 1892. It took six years until he and his wife Clara were granted citizenship, and in early 1898 he took the citizenus oath. At first the couple lived in Eilbek at Lubeckerstraue 39. It was there that Clara Ohnstein gave birth to their daughter Lucie on 26 Jan. 1893. Lucie remained their only child. Lucie Ohnstein received a solid general education at the Paulsenstift School and then attended the Gronesche Trade School. She got her first job at a cigar import-export company. Later she moved to the Dresdner Bank.

The Brasch and Ohnstein families were also connected in other ways: Clara's brother Max Leo married Paula Bertha Ohnstein from Pleschen, a half-sister of her husband. Her marriage produced two sons, Ludwig and Heinz.

Unprovided for, Clara Ohnstein gave up her middle-class home and moved with her seventeen-year-old daughter into a two-room apartment with a spacious kitchen but without a bathroom at Borgfelderstraue 23. Without any training or work experience, the now 42-year-old had no other choice than to draw on welfare to pull herself and her daughter through. Although she was a member of the community, Clara Ohnstein was not issued a culture tax card when Hamburgus German-Israelite Community instituted its tax card system in 1913, probably because she was destitute. She still retained her right to vote as a community member.

Initially the anti-Jewish measures instituted after Hitler took power in Feb. 1933 did not touch Clara Ohnstein directly, but her son-in-law's declining business made any further financial help impossible. She had no choice but to turn to welfare. On August 31, 1933, she applied for support for ongoing maintenance. The monthly rent for her two-room apartment was 34.65 RM, which was a lot according to the Welfare Office, but the welfare worker was committed to her receiving 5 RM a week anyway. In addition there was money for firing and medical expenses. Clara Ohnstein's well-kept, well-furnished apartment, her own well-groomed appearance and her calm, reserved nature had had a positive effect.
Her grandson Otto, however, who was attending Bismarck High School, was not allowed to join the German Youngsters in the Hitler Youth (Deutsches Jungvolk) "due to his non-Aryan heritage for the well-known principle of our movementu. A request to the Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter (regional leader of the NSDAP) in this matter was rejected in Mar. 1934 with reference to the regulations of the Reich administration. Perhaps more painful was the rejection by a close friend who did not want to jeopardize his promotion within the Hitler Youth through his friendship with a "half-Jewu. Protected by their "privileged mixed marriageu, the S. Family otherwise did not experience any drastic restrictions to their lives at first.

Clara Ohnstein, meanwhile noticeably affected by the anti-Semitic measures, had to leave her apartment in Borgfelderstraue after 26 years after her nephew failed to provide monthly support and had to look for a cheaper place to stay. For a monthly rent of 20 RM for an unfurnished room she moved in 1936 as a subtenant to the Cohn family in Sillemstraue 17 in Eimsbuttel, where she once again settled in at home. She returned there after a four-week stay in the Eppendorf hospital in the autumn of 1937. She had been hit by a car at the corner of Heuuweg/Osterstraue and had suffered a severe concussion. The Welfare Office then wanted to stop paying the rent, but the responsible social worker intervened in her favour, so that her familiar surroundings remained intact.
In July 1940, Clara Ohnstein once again was forced to move. It is not known whether she even tried to find another sublet. The Jewish Community housed her in the Marcus Nordheim Foundation at Schlachterstraue 40/42, which later became a "Jewish houseu, where she lived the next two years. In 1941 she received her own tax card for the first time, without ever being assessed for taxation.

A further major setback in her life likewise took place in 1940. One month after the war started, her grandson had finished his training as a petroleum merchant and afterwards worked one year in the head office of Hamburgus petroleum trading company, which had in the meantime become a monopoly. He left Hamburg to attend to customers of his fatherus oil company in all of Saxony and lived as a "furnished gentlemanu in Leipzig. It was there that he met his future wife Hildegard R. and moved in with her. She was "of German bloodu. Due to the Nuremberg Laws regarding race and additional decrees, they were not allowed to get married at the time. Grandmother and grandson stayed in contact through letters.
When her great-grandson Lutz was born in Leipzig in Sept. 1942, Clara Ohnstein was already in Theresienstadt. Prior to her forced deportation on 19 July 1942, she wrote her grandson Otto a letter of farewell:

"My dear, dear boy, As always I read your letter with joy, and today I must write you in such a sad state, sadder than ever, this farewell letter is written with tears. On Saturday our home will be closed, we are going to Thersienstadt near Prague, our directors are coming with us, it has come as such a surprise for all of us, they always said the old people would stay here, but only the crippled among us are staying, 80 and 90-year-olds will be going. It is not worth it to write about the details of all the cruelty imposed upon us. I only ask, if it is possible, that you write by Friday morning when all of our things will be transported. I donut know if I will ever be able to write you again from there, I donut believe so, and hope that I will soon be done. So, my only golden boy, remember your grandmother who has loved you more than anything else. Your mother was here until now Saturday and yesterday, perhaps she will come today. We only learned of it Friday. You can imagine what a state we are in, everyone is wailing, one person upsets the other. I canut go on, my sweetheart, I will take along a couple of pictures of you. Maybe I can write you a postcard along the way. New changes come in daily from our director, the telephone here does not stop ringing. Stay healthy and 1,000 kisses from your unhappy grandma."
She never learned of the birth of her great-grandchild. Clara Ohnstein died on 18 Nov. 1942 in the Theresienstadt ghetto at the age of 75. She was a victim of an enteritis epidemic that had been going around since mid summer and claimed 3,000 lives.

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Tijdbalk Clara Brasch

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