Bertha Sara Löwenstein

Overledene: Bertha Sara Weinberg Leeftijd: 56 Jaar Beroep: zonder beroep Relatie: David Israel Löwenstein Relatiesoort: Echtgenoot Vader: Samuel Weinberg Beroep: geen beroep vermeld Moeder: Karoline Wetterhahn Beroep: geen beroep vermeld Gebeurtenis: Overlijden Datum: zondag 10 november 1940 Gebeurtenisplaats: Aalten

IDSTEIN - (red). It is not a pretty story that board
member and city archivist Claudia Niemann spoke
about after this year's general meeting at the Idstein
History Association. The fate of the Jewish Idstein
family David Löwenstein is depressing. It's a story of
the Holocaust. "But it is our job to tell the story of
these victims in order to commemorate them in a
dignified and appropriate manner and to tell future
generations about these crimes," said Niemann at
the beginning of her speech. Together with 10th
grade students from the Pestalozzi School in Idstein,
she worked through the fate of the Löwenstein
family in 2019.
Employment in a psychiatric clinic
The cattle dealer David Löwenstein and his wife
Berta moved from Esch to Idstein in 1909 and
bought the house at Wiesbadener Straße 22, where
the artist Gunter Demnig laid three stumbling blocks
110 years later, in 2019.
Three children were born, daughter Ruth as the
baby in 1923. The economic situation of the family
was difficult. After the First World War, David
Löwenstein became seriously ill and was often in the
hospital for weeks. In addition to the loss of
earnings, high hospital costs had to be borne. The
situation became even more difficult after the
National Socialists took power and called for a
boycott of the Jews. Son Norbert fled in 1934 after
an incident at the Alteburg market in Heftrich. This
escape finally ended in South Africa in 1936.
Ruth Löwenstein was a pupil at the Idstein
elementary school until 1936, when she, like many
other Jewish children, had to attend the Jewish
school in Wiesbaden. Shortly thereafter, she went to
the Jewish School of Economics in Frankfurt for a
year.
After returning to her hometown in 1938, Ruth
Löwenstein had to witness the pogrom night. The
house on Wiesbadener Strasse was vandalized and
the Löwenstein family was expelled. The family fled
to the Netherlands via Frankfurt, where Ruth's sister
Clothilde already lived with her husband. Ruth
Löwenstein and her parents were able to find refuge
in the "place of hiding" Aalten. When Germany
invaded the Netherlands in 1940, hatred and
persecution caught up with the family again. From
then on, reprisals against the Jewish population
increased steadily.
After the death of her parents in 1942, the 18-year-
old found a job at the psychiatric clinic Het
Apeldoornsche Bosch, probably with the help of a
friend. Founded in 1909, this clinic for Jewish people
with mental illnesses was considered modern and
groundbreaking. War and occupation had so far
passed by the residents of the clinic, it was
considered "Jewish heaven". That changed abruptly
on January 19, 1943, when the institution was
vacated by the SS: 1,200 patients were taken to the
train station and beaten into waiting freight cars.
Ruth Löwenstein and 50 other employees of the
institution accompanied the patients on this
transport to Auschwitz in order to look after and
care for them. When the train arrived days later, half
of the patients were already dead, according to
eyewitness reports. The survivors and the
accompanying staff were murdered immediately
after arrival, and no one survived. The Jewish
Idsteiner Ruth Löwenstein died on January 25, 1943
at the age of 19 in Auschwitz.