People

Seraphine Bauer was born in Peine in 1886, the daughter of Moritz Bauer and his wife. She had three brothers and two sisters. One of her brothers was Jonas Bauer, who died in Hanover at the age of 80. Seraphine"s granddaughter Gertrud Mandowsky later wrote about him: “According to rumor, he is said to have saved the jewels of the King of Hanover and brought them to England in 1866.”

On May 19, 1861, Seraphine married merchant and banker Sally Heinemann in Peine. Sally was the oldest of the three Lüneburg Heinemann brothers. Seraphine moved to Lüneburg to live with him. The couple lived in the Heinemann family"s large house in Bardowicker Straße, where the bank"s offices were located on the first floor. In the 1860s, their children Albert, Louis and Betty were born there.

Seraphine died already in 1886 and was buried in the town"s Jewish cemetery. Her gravestone reads in Hebrew: "Here is buried the dear woman, God-fearing and middling to the afflicted, Sara, the daughter of Mr. Moshe. She died in her prime, 24 Nissan 646 according to the small calendar. And her husband and her children and all who knew her kindness and her charity blessed her after her."

Seraphine Heinemann"s gravestone is one of the few that still exist today, following the destruction and complete leveling of the Jewish cemetery during the Nazi era. Together with several other gravestones, Seraphine"s stone was 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 was several years before the gravestones were re-erected in the early 1970s, albeit not in their original location and only as fragments.


Sources and info:

Gravestone for Seraphine Heinemann, nee Bauer: epidat - Forschungsplattform jüdische Grabsteinepigraphik, Lüneburg, lbg-2