What We Know:
Family name: Lichtenstein
Given name: Eva
Date/place of birth: 13 May 1912, Hamburg
Date/place of death: Exact date of death unknown
Age: 30 years old at deportation

Eva Lichtenstein was born 13 May 1912 in Hamburg to parents whose names we do not know. Employment as a housekeeper seems to have brought her  to Krimderode, a village of about 1000 residents that lay to the north of Nordhausen. Here she met Ferdinand Ernst Lichtenstein, b. 1897 in Nordhausen, a Jew 12 years older than she. On 10 December 1937, a child, Rosemarie, was born. While Eva took on the surname “Lichtenstein,” and the couple lived together, the records indicate that Ferdinand and Eva did not marry. In the few records available, both Ferdinand and Eva are identified as “ledig” — that is, unmarried.

Only a little is known about their lives between the birth of Rosemarie and the early 1940s. The family lived at Rosenstraße 1 and Ferdinand was employed in a business. No record exists of Ferdinand’s being taken into “Schutzhaft,” so-called protective custody, in the Kristallnacht/Reichspogrom of 9/10 November 1938.

On 6 October 1941, age 44, Ferdinand Lichtenstein died. The cause is not stated in the record (below) kept by the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland.

At Ferdinand’s death, Eva was 29 years old with a 4-year old toddler. It is possible that Eva and Rosemarie were the only Jews in the village. Sometime after Ferdinand’s death, Eva and Rosemarie moved from Rosenstraße 1 to Gartenstraße 2. Then, on 9 May 1942, the two were taken from Krimderode to Weimar, and from there on to Lublin the following day. They arrived in Lublin on 12 May 1942. Rosemarie was 4 ½ years old.

What happened to mother and child after their arrival in Lublin is puzzling. The only documentation available are the entries in the German National Archives, Memorial Book. The entry for Eva states only that she was deported on 10 May 1942; the entry for Rosemarie adds that she was in Majdanek concentration camp. It seems inconceivable that the two would have been separated but further research is needed to answer all the questions.

Should anyone reading this page know more about the Lichtenstein family, please contact Sharon Meen at [email protected].