People

Martha was the sixth child of Marcus Heinemann and his wife Henriette, née Lindenberg. She was born in July 1862, just a few days after the untimely death of her brother Karl, who died when he was barely a year old.

In that same year, her family moved out of the old Heinemann family home in Bardowicker Straße and began a new chapter in the family history, at nearby Große Bäckerstraße 23. Martha grew up there with her ever-growing family: after her, her mother Henriette gave birth to eleven more children.

When her mother Henriette died in 1883 after giving birth to her son Henry, all the older children were called upon to look after the younger ones - and also after their grieving father, who was unable to cope with the loss of his beloved wife for a long time. Martha, 21 years old at the time, soon took on the central role. Her sister Emilie recalled fifty years later, shortly after Martha"s death: “After the death of our dear mother on November 12, 1883, she took over the household and the upbringing of the small children. She was a loyal support to our father, "his angel", as he said. Henry was nine days old.”  - “The little children asked: "Marthe, why don"t we say Mama like the other children do?” So they didn"t realize that their mother was missing.”

Her siblings gradually left the house, married and started their own families. But Martha stayed in the family home in Große Bäckerstraße, together with her younger, also unmarried siblings Emilie and Willy. She apparently became chronically ill at an early age and had to lie down a lot for decades, as Emilie wrote after Martha"s death: “Despite her illness, which later confined her [...] almost completely to bed, she always remained the center of the family. She had her father"s shrewd sense and was always a clever helper. She helped him in word and deed and shared his worries. When our father died on December 26, 1908, she maintained and improved the family home. She wrote regularly to her siblings in faraway places and thus kept them in touch with the family home. During the difficult war years, they thanked her with touching support. [...] She knew how to win everyone"s hearts with love and kindness. She was our sunshine.”

In the 1920s, the financial situation for Martha and her siblings Emilie and Willy became much worse. Inflation caused their inheritance to dwindle and Martha had to pay high medical bills. Willy, who had at least earned a small income as a photographer, died in 1923. Martha and Emilie were left alone, presumably supported by their older siblings.

On December 4, 1934, Martha Heinemann died in the house at Große Bäckerstraße 23. She was last cared for by the Lüneburg neurologist Albert Nathan Ransohoff. Her sister Emilie wrote a little later, full of sadness: “Martha was unable to overcome the hard times of the Jews. Despite the fact that God sent her a competent specialist doctor of the same faith in the greatest times of need; her old doctor had become too old. He could not feel all the bitterness like a Jew, but he remained a faithful friend to her.”

Martha Gella Heinemann was buried in Lüneburg"s Jewish cemetery, next to her brother Willy. In 1936, her sister Emilie was also buried here. The gravestone for the three Heinemann siblings is one of the few that remained after the cemetery was destroyed and completely leveled during the Nazi era. Together with several other gravestones, it had been built into the foundations of a makeshift home erected in 1944. When this makeshift home was demolished in 1967, the stones came to light. It took a few more years before the gravestones were re-erected as fragments in the early 1970s.


Sources and info (in German):

Gravestone for Mart(h)a, Willy and Emilie Heinemann: epidat - Forschungsplattform jüdische Grabsteinepigraphik, Lüneburg, lbg-13

Emilie Heinemann"s memoirs, Stadtarchiv Lüneburg, NBi 33

Name variants: Marta Gella