The general practitioner Dr. med. Bernhard Aronsohn practised in the town of Lübtheen from 1901 to 1938 [1]. After the ban on Jewish doctors had taken effect on 30 September 1938, he gave up his practice at Klingbergstraße 20 [1]. After the November pogrom, several days of "protective custody" and the imposition of a "Jewish levy" of 11,600 RM, he sold his house with its furnishings at a give-away price and, according to the biography, left Lübtheen in December 1938, whereas other sources date the house sale and his departure only to 1939 [1][5]. On 11 July 1942 he was deported from Hamburg to Auschwitz [1][2].
Career until 1933
Bernhard Aronsohn was born on 1 August 1874 in Kolmar (Chodziez) in the province of Posen, while his family later settled in Dresden, where he passed the Abitur at the Gymnasium zum Heiligen Kreuz in 1895, before he received his medical doctorate in Leipzig in 1901 [1]. In 1901 he also set up as a general practitioner in Lübtheen, at first alongside the Sanitätsrat (medical councillor) Seeler [1].
According to the biography he worked for a municipal hospital, construction of which began in 1903, and for a community nurse, gave talks on health care and treated the poor free of charge; in 1912 he donated a flag to the village school [1]. In the First World War he served as a military doctor, among other things as camp doctor at the prisoner-of-war camp in Parchim [1]. In 1918 he joined the German Democratic Party (DDP) and was elected to the municipal council in 1919, but in 1921, in view of growing antisemitism, he did not stand again [1].
1933 to 1938: harassment and professional ban
After January 1933 he was harassed by local National Socialists, with SA men stopping patients from entering the practice at Klingbergstraße 20 without the police intervening [1]. When the ban on Jewish doctors took effect on 30 September 1938, he ended his practice in that same month [1]. Although relatives in the USA urged him to emigrate, at first he refused [1].
After the November pogrom of 9 to 10 November 1938 he was held for several days in "protective custody" [1]. According to Kasten he was taken to the prison at Alt-Strelitz on 10 November 1938 [2], whereas the Bundesgedenkbuch (German federal memorial book) gives the period of detention at Alt-Strelitz as 10 to 16 November 1938 [5]. On 12 December 1938 he was finally obliged to pay a "Jewish levy" of 11,600 RM [1].
Sale of the house and departure
Aronsohn sold his house with furniture and equipment at a give-away price, although the biography names neither buyer nor price [1]; no file on the "Entjudung" (removal of Jews) of the practice or the house has so far been found. In December 1938 he left Lübtheen after 37 years [1]. This is, however, contradicted by the fact that the Bundesgedenkbuch lists Lübtheen as his residence "until 1939" [5] and that Kasten (2008) gives 1939 as the year in which he and his wife Ida had to sell their house, so that the sources contradict each other on the dating of the house sale and the departure; this could presumably be clarified only through the Lübtheen land register and the restitution file AfW 080588. The Claims Conference lists two claims for him, one for Klingbergstraße and one for Stellingstraße 15, the residential house [3][4].
On 24 August 1939 he arrived in Hamburg by way of Rostock, so that an immediate move there after the November pogrom, as the project database entry suggests, should not be assumed according to the biography, since a stay in Rostock lay between Lübtheen and Hamburg [1]. He rented a flat there at Lenhartzstraße 7 [1]. In January 1941 Ida Ostberg, who was born on 8 May 1888 in Bocholt and had lost her guesthouse, became his housekeeper, and on 28 November 1941 the two married [1]. On 11 March 1942 they had to move into a "Judenhaus" at Kielortallee 22 [1]. After they had reported at the community house at Hartungstraße 9/11 on 10 July 1942, they were taken to Auschwitz in the fifth deportation from Hamburg on 11 July 1942, the presumed date of death being 8 May 1945 [1].
Remembrance
A memorial plaque from the 1950s on his former residence at Stellingstraße 15 commemorates the doctor murdered in Auschwitz [4], for which the biography gives the year 1959 [1]. Since 2006 a Stolperstein has been laid in Lübtheen, a street bears his name, and in Hamburg Stolpersteine at Lenhartzstraße 7 commemorate Bernhard and Ida Aronsohn [1]. His suitcase is today in the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial [1][2].