People

Moritz (Moses) Salomon - not to be confused with the 18th-century Schutzjude Moses Salomon - was a son of the eminent Winsen merchant Joseph Salomon and his wife Brünette née Heinemann from Bleckede (who was a sister of Simon Heinemann). Probably around 1840, as a young merchant, Moritz came from Winsen/Luhe to Lüneburg, where his younger brother Simon Salomon already lived.

In the course of Jewish emancipation in the Kingdom of Hanover in 1843, Moritz Salomon was one the first three Jews who became citizens of Lüneburg - the other two being his uncle Simon Heinemann and Lüneburg banker Wolf Hirsch Michaels. He ran a "Manufacturwaaren-Handlung" (business for manifactured goods) in the Große Bäckerstraße. In 1845, Moritz Salomon replaced Moses Isaak Ahrons, who had been the head of the Jewish community in Lüneburg for many years, and remained its leader for many years thereafter.

He was married three times and had a total of 13 children: His first wife Jette Isenstein from Hildesheim died in 1848 shortly after the birth of their fourth child. In 1850 he married again. His second wife Henriette Salomon from Hamburg had a child who lived only a few weeks, and died herself shortly thereafter. His third wife was Julie Spanier (from the important Jewish Spanier family in Wunstorf, close to Hannover), whom he married in 1852. From this last marriage came eight children.

Death was always very close in this family. The years between 1848 and 1852 in particular must have been terrible for Moritz Salomon: his first wife died in 1848, then two small children and his second wife within a few weeks of each other in 1851. In March 1852, a few days after his marriage to his third wife, his first child died at the age of eight.

Moritz Salomon died from a stroke in Lüneburg in 1870 and was buried in the Jewish cemetery. His youngest child Ella Martha was born after his death.