What We Know:
Family name: Naumann
Birth Name: Ehrlich
Given name: Marta
Date/place of birth: 26 October 1889, Römhild
Age: 44 years old at deportation
Marta Ehrlich was born in 1898 in the village of Römhild near Hildburghausen. She was part of a large family who had settled in this region of Thüringen in the mid- to late 1700s. The Ehrlichs were the first Jewish family to settle in Römhild. Karl, b. 1849 in Berkach, and his wife, Clara (née Sander), raised eight (8) children in Römhild between the mid 1870s and late 1880s. In 1896, the Karl Ehrlich family moved to Coburg in Bavaria where Karl set up a hat and cap factory with sons Sally and Hermann.
Marta was the younger of two daughters born to Emil, b. 1861 in Berkach, and Babette (née Schulherr) Ehrlich. Her older sister was Carry, b. 1894. Carry married a cousin, Franz Ehrlich, b. 1885 in Römhild, son of Karl and Clara.
It is not known how Marta met Hugo Naumann, b. 1898 in Gailingen, far to the southwest of Römhild near Lake Constance. Gailingen was a much larger town than Römhild with a significant Jewish community: in 1895, 725 (41.5 %) Jews lived in the town of a population of 1,745.
Hugo was the son of Eliakim and Ete Naumann and had at least one brother, Avraham. Little is known about Hugo’s family.
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When the Nazi Regime began in January 1933, Marta Ehrlich was in Römhild with her mother Babette and husband Hugo. Her father, Emil, died just before the regime began, on 8 January 1933. Then, on 30 June 1933, Margot Naumann, the first child born to Martha and Hugo, died at three months. The Naumanns had three more children in the 1930s: Ruth, b. 1935; Hanna, b. 1937; and Mathel, b. October 1938.
On 23 June 1938, Carry and Franz Ehrlich were able to escape from Germany, sailing from Hamburg to New York City. Franz died in May 1948 in freedom.
Hugo and Marta Naumann, and their three children, were trapped in Germany. In 1941, Ruth, their eldest child, was able to attend the Jewish school in Erfurt for one term, 29 August 1941 to 19 December 1941, and then again for a few days from 24 February 1942 to 10 March 1942. She lived at Elly Stein’s, who considered her to be a “liebes, gutes Kind, macht sie ebenso viel Freude wie Arbeit.”
On 5 May 1942, the Naumanns received notification of their upcoming resettlement to live and work in the ‘east. On 9 May 1942, the family of five said goodbye to Marta’s mother, Babette. Five months later, the Nazis would hope to delude into thinking she was going to a retirement ghetto in Theresienstadt.
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In 1999, Meir Friedmann, son of Max and Anna (née Kahn) Friedmann, who were deported to Belzyce Ghetto with the Naumanns, submitted Pages of Testimony to Yad Vashem to honour the family of Hugo and Marta Naumann.
Quellen:
,,Die Geschichte der jüdischen Gemeinde in Römhild zur Ergänzung der Ortschronik zusammengestellt von Ralf-Rainer König,“ Kinder wie die Zeit vergeht,
Karl-Heinz Roß, “Seit Gleicherwiesen Juden hat wird es berühmte Handelsstadt”, in H.Nothnagel (Hrg.), Juden in Südthüringen geschützt und gejagt, Band 2: Juden in den ehem. Residenzstädten Römhild, Hildburghausen und deren Umfeld, Verlag Buchhaus Suhl, Suhl 1998, S. 75 – 91
,,Sally Ehrlich,” History of the Coburg Jews
Jutta Hoschek, Ausgelöschtes Leben: Juden in Erfurt 1933-1945, Erfurt: 2013, p. 319.