Hermann Loewenhardt told his American-born children that he had been in an orphanage in Germany before he emigrated to the United States. It was difficult to believe. Why should he have been in an orphanage? Born in 1892, Hermann was the youngest of the twelve children of Levi and Pauline Löwenhardt of Oberhemer. At the time of his birth, his father was 52, his mother 45 (she lived to be 85!) and his oldest three brothers were 19, 18 and 16 years of age. His oldest sister, Clara, was twelve.
While visiting Germany in August of this year I stumbled upon a book written by the historian Margit Naarmann about the Jewish families of Paderborn during the nazi terror. It had an appendix listing the children of the Jewish orphanage – and to my surprise not only Hermann was in that list, two of his brothers were as well: Julius (1887 – appr.1978) and Siegmund (1889 – 1944). All three had been living in the orphanage during the first years of the Twentieth Century, Hermann from age 7 to 14. Magdalena Strugholz in Dortmund, who managed to get hold of the book, has found that Ludwig, the father of Kurt Ikenberg, had also been in this orphanage.
at Paderborn
The Jewish Provincial Orphanage for Westfalia and Rhineland was opened in 1856 thanks to the work of Fanny Nathan (1803-1877), a devout Jewish woman who took the mitswa of tsedaka very seriously. She had a gift for fundraising and for committing Jewish and non-Jewish authorities to her cause. In August 1863 the custom built orphanage was openeded, financed entirely by monies raised by Fanny. She headed the orphanage until her death in 1877. One single and hazy picture of the orphanage at Paderborns Leostraße has survived, the building is no longer there.
The brothers Julius and Siegmund Löwenhardt entered the orphanage in January 1899 at ages 11 and 9. Their brother Hermann came one year later on 3 April 1900, aged 7. All three came from Hemer where in the following three years their family dissolved. In the Autumn of 1903 their mother Pauline was the last to leave town, for her place of birth, Plettenberg.
What may have been the cause? Poverty in the Löwenhardt family? Or a break-up? Unfortunately up to this day we do not know the date when Levi Löwenhardt died. But since neither Hermann nor Siegmund, Julius or Ludwig were orphans in the strict sense of the term, it may have been that the orphanage was used for other purposes that just the care for children without parents. For education perhaps?
The number of pupils at the orphanage was declining by the time of the séjour of the three Löwenhardt boys Julius (1899-1901), Siegmund (1899-1903) and Hermann (1900-1907). In 1895 there had been 62 pupils, in 1904 46 and in 1906 only 38. The numbers declined further to 21 in 1942 when the orphanage was closed and almost all pupils were murdered.
in orphanage uniform?
Soon after Julius and Siegmund had arrived in January 1899, orphanage director Johanna Marcks-Nathan died. Her daughter Paula Marcks took over. She will have had a considerable impact on the education of particularly Hermann. At the occasion of the orphanage’s fiftieth anniversary in 1906 it underwent a complete overhaul and renovation.
In the garden every pupil had a plot of one square meter in size for which he or she was responsible. The orphanage had its own stables with milch cows. Jewish families in Paderborn often invited orphanage children for parties and took them on trips to the countryside or wider afield. But apart from the weekly visit to the synagogue, the social life of orphanage pupils was limited to the orphanage grounds.
Julius left the orphanage when he had turned fourteen years old, in October 1901. He went to Lüdenscheid. Siegmund left at that age on 31 December 1903, for Bruch/Recklinghausen. Only Hermann Löwenhardt stayed on, until his fourteenth birthday. He left the orphanage on 29 April 1907 for Stadthagen. When, after leaving the orphanage, the pupils were learning a trade with a craftsman, the orphanage continued to provide them with financial support. This was so until money ran out by 1930.
Sources
- Margit Naarmann, Die Paderborner Juden 1802-1945. Emanzipation, Integration und Vernichtung. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Juden in Westfalen im 19. Und 20. Jahrhundert. Paderborner Historische Forschungen Band 1, n.d. (1988), Chapter V: “Das Jüdische Waisenhaus für Westfalen und Rheinland in Paderborn von 1856-1942”, 355-385
- —, “Fanny Nathan 1803-1877. Gründerin des jüdischen Waisenhauses in Paderborn”, Internet-Portal “Westfälische Geschichte”, 2005
Herbert Eisenstein was born in Dortmund on 11 June 1910 and entered the Jewish Orphanage in Paderborn on 13 December 1916. On 30 August 1924, having turned 14 years, he returned to Dortmund-Lindenhorst. He fled to The Netherlands in 1934 and to the USA in 1938. Upon naturalisation, his family name was changed to Isen. Herbert passed away at age 93.
Jeff Isen, the youngest of his three children, writes from the USA and shares his father’s stories about the Jewish orphanage in Paderborn:
“My father did talk about the orphanage but not often. He mentioned the headmaster who was a retired high ranking army officer; the orderliness of life with rules for bedtime, dining hall, lessons, and gardening. My father was always insistent about having his shoes polished daily, first by my brother and later by me. I learned that he was required to do this daily at the orphanage. He told of a dining hall arrangement of secretly trading a sardine or egg or something similar, wafting this exchange across the table to a classmate because his friend had no taste for sardines and everyone was responsible for their own plate. I recall that he mentioned boyhood pranks of sucking out an egg from two small holes in the shell. So I assume there were possibly chickens and small animals around. In general, it seems that food was adequate during the war years. He mentioned that there was occasionally loud noise from a military complex nearby which he believed was a proving ground or something to do with military manufacturing. As a youth my father did daily tefillin and phylacteries which must have been part of the religious education at the orphanage. There was vocational training and when my father left he eventually secured a responsible job from Ka-I-RO which was the German equivalent of Starbucks but on a much smaller scale. Some sort of athletic training was also part of the routine because he mentions a contest in which he came in second and Dad was very competitive and also very strong. He was a lifelong chess player. So I assume this is something learned during his time in the orphanage.
“It seems my father was generally happy at the orphanage but missed his mother, Johanna. He had periodic visits with her and worshiped her. Apparently his mom had a tint and dye shop and gave Dad to the orphanage so that she could care for her sick parents. He never knew his own father who apparently died when he was very young. I don’t even know his name and I don’t recall that he ever mentioned it. His father’s life and death are vague — possibly he died of a pulmonary infection ( I wonder if he was a casualty of the war or just simply disappeared. I wish we could get some information about his mother and father and grandparents.). We do know that his mom emigrated to Holland some time before he went and helped secure his apprenticeship in a rich household where he learned his future trade. His mom born in Dortmund, Sept. 5,1890 was deported on Sept. 18, 1942 from Westerbork, Holland to Kosel in Upper Silezia and then to Auschwitz – Birkenau.”