Henriette Arndt

Henriette Arndt (born May 13, 1892 in Regenwalde ; † May 1942 in the Kulmhof extermination camp ) was a German teacher .

Live and act

Henriette Arndt was the fourth child of Georg Arndt, a secret medical adviser , and his wife Rosa, née Lichtenstein. She had two brothers and three sisters. Both parents were of Jewish origin and were believed to be members of the local community. The family's religious orientation is unknown. While the father had the two sons baptized and confirmed , he did not do this with the four daughters.

Arndt's mother died around 1900 after giving birth to a child, after which her father remarried. While her brothers passed a high school diploma at the humanistic grammar school in Greiffenberg , nothing is known about Henriette Arndt's youth and schooling. However, she should also have received a higher education. Her three sisters died early. While the two years older brother Leopold studied medicine and took over the father's practice, Henriette Arndt attended the teachers' seminar in Kolberg, today Kołobrzeg , where she completed a teacher training course.

On June 7, 1913, Arndt started working as a teacher and on October 1, 1914, she joined the school service of the City of Hamburg , where she was supposed to represent teachers drafted into the war . From April 1, 1920 to 1933, she taught in a permanent position at the Höhere Töchterschule Schulweg 31/33 in Eimsbüttel , at the girls' schools Papendamm 3a and Lutterothstraße 36. From 1931 she also taught at the new girls’s school with superstructure at Graudenzer Weg 34 (today's comprehensive school age Teichweg in Dulsberg ).

Around 1931 she married the merchant Friedrich Kirchhoff, but soon separated from him again and took the maiden name again. At that time, Henriette Arndt was close friends with her colleague Charlotte Beug, with whom she also spent vacations after 1933.

After the National Socialists seized power , Arndt was dismissed from service on July 29, 1933 under the law to restore the civil service. She received a salary until October 31, 1933, then a pension of 166.97 Reichsmarks , which corresponded to half of her previous earnings  . She tried several times unsuccessfully to get a job at the Jewish girls' school on Carolinenstrasse. At the beginning of 1936 she got the opportunity to teach seven children in a Jewish private school in the villa of Rahel Liebeschütz-Plaut, the daughter of Hugo Plaut , at Schanzkamp 52 in Blankenese . Liebeschütz-Plaut and her husband, the historian Hans Liebeschütz , had previously looked for a conveniently located and religiously liberal educational institution for their eight-year-old son, who had to leave the primary school in Blankenese because the family was of Jewish faith. Arndt now also taught Hebrew and the Jewish religion, although she did not feel connected to Judaism, and from April 28, 1933 she was a member of the German-Israelite Congregation Hamburg.

Shortly before Christmas 1938, Rahel Liebeschütz-Plaut emigrated to England; her husband followed in the spring of 1939. Rahel Liebeschütz-Plaut had previously unsuccessfully applied for an entry permit for Henriette Arndt to England. After the Jewish school in Blankenese closed in 1939, Arndt worked briefly at a Jewish school in Lübeck . After the Reichspogromnacht of November 9, 1938, Arndt had to pay a Jewish property levy and sell some of her securities, which caused her to lose about half of her property and worsen her financial situation. According to calculations by the Reparation Office , she had to pay 6,262.13  Reichsmarks in five installments.

After a teacher had given up his job in their favor, Arndt was able to accept a teaching position on October 1, 1940 at the elementary and high school for Jews in Hamburg. At that time she still hoped to be able to leave the country. In April 1941 she was dismissed because of the austerity measures imposed by the National Socialists . Arndt continued her teaching activity free of charge from June 1941 and was therefore not used for a work assignment involving hard physical labor. On October 25, 1941, Henriette Arndt and her colleagues Rebecca Rothschild and Dorothea Bernstein were deported on the first train from Hamburg to Lodz . Here she lived in the Litzmannstadt ghetto ; According to the records there, she and eleven other residents moved into a room in Rauchgasse 25 on January 9, 1942.

Henriette Arndt had correspondence with Charlotte Beug until the beginning of May 1942; The following post was returned with the note "moved unknown". Between May 4 and 15, 1942, Henriette Arndt was gassed in the Kulmhof extermination camp . On January 22, 1943, the Hamburg tax authorities withdrew their remaining assets in the form of securities in the amount of 12,200 Reichsmarks, half of which came from her father's estate. At the end of 1945 Henriette Arndt was declared dead on the basis of a decision by the Hamburg District Court .

souvenir

Stumbling stone for Henriette Arndt at Alter Teichweg 200

According to Charlotte Beug's notes, Henriette Arndt was commemorated in March 1956 at the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the school on Alten Teichweg. On April 29, 1994, plaques for Henriette Arndt and Hugo Plaut were unveiled on the former school building in Blankenese. Two stumbling blocks have been laid for Henriette Arndt in Hamburg : One stumbling block is in front of her last apartment at Semperstrasse 67 in Winterhude , and another at the primary school at Alter Teichweg 200.

literature

• Holger Martens : Arndt, Henriette . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 4 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-8353-0229-7 , pp. 22-24 .
• Ursula Randt : Carolinenstraße 35. History of the girls' school of the German-Israelite community in Hamburg. Association for Hamburg History , 1985.

Web links

• Portrait on Stolpersteine-Hamburg.de