Laying Stumbling Stones in Berlin for parents and daughters
The Rosenthal family
Isidor Rosenthal was born in Lyck on November 10, 1878. He was the son of David and Natalia Rosenthal. He was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class during the First World War. His wife Elsbeth was born on November 5, 1890 in Toruń, the daughter of Arnold and Natalia Danziger. They had three daughters: Lieselotte, Alice and Ursel.
The Rosenthals lived in Lyck in their own apartment building at Kaiser-Wilhelm-Str. 68 (today Wojska Polskiego 18 – see photo). They lived in a 7-room apartment on the second floor above Felix Kellermann’s shoe store and a drugstore. The tenement house with its outbuilding, warehouse, garages, sheds and stables was used by Isidore Rosenthal’s haulage company “Rosenthal & Sohn”, which had been founded by his father.
In April 1933, the company’s license as an official rail freight forwarder was revoked. Under pressure, Rosenthal sold the freight forwarding company to the “Aryan” employees there for a small fee. The company was taken over by Willi Strehl and Paul Biernatowski (1938 directory). When the farmers stopped selling grain to Jews, Isidor lost his grain trading business and with it the last way to support himself and his family. Later that year, Isidor Rosenthal was “preventively arrested” and sent to the Lyck prison.
After his release, he decided to move with his family to Berlin, hoping to escape Nazi persecution in the big city.
Lyck had a population of 15,000, of whom only 137 were Jews. The Rosenthals were able to take some of their valuable furnishings with them to Berlin: Persian carpets, paintings, a Bechstein grand piano. They settled in the Charlottenburg district at 21 Suarezstraße. In Berlin, Isidor Rosenthal tried to rebuild his life by trading in potatoes and animal feed. At first, business went well. He helped his daughters Alice and Ursel to emigrate. Alice was detained in Spandau concentration camp, but after her release she was able to go to Belgium and from there to England. She later emigrated to Australia.
Soon after, I. Rosenthal’s income from the trade declined and the family’s financial situation deteriorated significantly. As a result of the “Decree on the exclusion of Jews from German economic life” (12.10.1938), Rosenthal lost his business again. After the November pogrom, the grandmother Natalie Rosenthal, née Cohn, who had been the last of the family still living in Lyck, also moved to Berlin.
In early 1940, the Rosenthals were evicted from their apartment at Suarezstr. 21 and forcibly relocated to an outbuilding at Xantener Str. 4. From there, Isidor and Elsbeth Rosenthal were deported to the collection camp in the old synagogue at Levetzowstr. 7/8, and then from the freight yard in Berlin-Moabit (Putlitzstr.) with the so-called “18th Eastern Transport” (15.08.1942) to Riga. The train DA 401 with 1004 people arrived in Riga-Skirotava on August 18, 1942. Since the Riga ghetto had already been liquidated in October 1941, all Jews from the Reich (with the exception of an unknown nurse) were murdered in the forests of Rumbula and Biekierniki immediately upon their arrival.
Grandmother Natalie Rosenthal was transported to Theresienstadt, where she died.
The middle daughter Lieselotte was in and out of educational homes from 1935 and served prison sentences for critical remarks and misconduct. According to a later statement by her sister, she died in a labor camp during an air raid in 1943.
Ursel (Ursula) Rosenthal, in Israel – Michal Milo (born November 25, 1920 in Ełk) – was the youngest daughter. Ursel became involved in the Zionist youth organizations Shomer Hatzair and “Werkleute”. In 1938, she emigrated to Palestine. From 1942, she lived in the Hasorea kibbutz, which was founded in 1933 thanks to the involvement of members of the “Werkleute” organization. She worked as a knitter and seamstress in the kibbutz. She died on February 2, 2001 in Hasorea.
Isidor and Elsbeth Rosenthal were commemorated with stones (Stolpersteine) set into the pavement next to the apartment building where they lived in Berlin. Liselotte, Alice and Ursel will be commemorated on Wednesday, April 2, 2025 in Berlin at Suarezstr. 21 at 10:40 am.
Sources:
Initiative and Facebook post from the local historian Stefan Marcinkiewicz (in Poland).
Text and photos after: Sabine Jähret supplemented by Stolperstein-Initiative Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. https://www.stolpersteine-berlin.de/de/biografie/6081
Address books from 1922, 1938.
Transport card showing the name of Isidor Rosenthal of Lyck (15.08.1942).
Revised and published on 2025 March 27