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Selma Sternau was the daughter of Hermann Sternau from Dortmund and his wife Pauline/Lina née Heilbrunn from Hofgeismar. She grew up in Dortmund as the second child of a large family. On July 16, 1886, she married the young lawyer Robert Heinemann, who at that time was just settling in his hometown Lüneburg as a lawyer after years of study and training.
Selma came from a very artistic Jewish family. Her brother and sister-in-law, the merchant Louis Sternau and his wife Klara née Aaron, were, like the Heinemanns in Lüneburg, very involved in various charitable associations as well as social and cultural initiatives. Louis Sternau was, among other things, an important supporter of the Dortmund Museum of Arts and Crafts.
Through the Sternaus, the Heinemanns later came into contact with the Rhee family in Dortmund, who were friends with important contemporary artists such as Kandinsky, Heckel and Benno Elkan. This also resulted in a kinship bond: Max Rhee from Dortmund married the eldest daughter of Selma and Robert Heinemann, Else, shortly before the First World War.
After their marriage, Robert and Selma Heinemann initially rented an old Lüneburg house on Obere Schrangenstraße. There Selma gave birth to the children Else, Fritz, Gertrud, Lotte and Kurt. In 1898, the family moved into a prestigious new building in Schießgrabenstraße, which was just becoming one of Lüneburg"s best residential areas at the time. In 1902, their last child Hans was born there.
The family was cosmopolitan and liberal, Selma and Robert enabled all their children to get good educations, the daughters also studied and spent time abroad. In 1919, their youngest child Hans left the parental home in Lüneburg. Robert Heinemann died much too early and unexpectedly in 1920. His widow Selma remained at Schießgrabenstraße 10 for many years, and her grandchildren later fondly remembered visits to their grandmother.
From 1926, the youngest daughter, Dr. Lotte Heinemann, lived in the family home again after completing her medical training and opened a pediatric practice there. In 1931, Selma Heinemann née Sternau died in Lüneburg after a long illness and was buried in the Jewish cemetery Am Neuen Felde.
Sources and info:
Gravestone for Robert and Selma Heinemann:
epidat - Forschungsplattform jüdische Grabsteinepigraphik, Lüneburg, lbg-11
Manfred Göske: Festakt zu Ehren von Fritz Heinemann in der Ratsbücherei - Seiner Lüneburger Heimat blieb der Philosoph immer verbunden, Landeszeitung Lüneburg, 31.05.1985
https://www.mengede-intakt.de/2022/10/12/museum-fuer-kunst-und-kulturgeschichte-mkkerinnert-an-louis-sternau/
