Bella Wertheimer 1890-1942

This is the last trace of Bella living in Coburg. Her situation was desperate and increasingly hopeless. None of her family was in Germany: Milton was in Amsterdam, as was her sister Rosa who had fled from Dessau after the pogrom with her husband, Jacob, and her father Nathan Wertheimer. Her brother Julius Wertheimer had emigrated to the USA with his family in 1936, her brother-in-law Nathan Wertheimer fled to Argentina two years later. But she was stuck in Germany.

The last entry for Bella on her Coburg Registration Card tells us that she was in Marisfeld. After that, knowledge of her whereabouts is scattered. The May 1939 Minority Census of Jews in Germany finds Bella living in Halle/Saale (possibly staying with her uncle Nathan Frankenberg; in the next three years, she moved among the village of Marisfeld and town of Meiningen.In May 1942 she lived in a so-called “Jew House” in Meiningen. This is the last address “in freedom” that there is of her.

Together with other Jews in Meiningen — and five Jews in Themar — Bella was deported from Weimar via Leipzig to the Belzyce ghetto on May 10, 1942. There her trail is lost. It is not known when she died or was killed.

Arolsen Archives, Deportation from Weimar to Belzyce Ghetto, 1942/5/10

Wertheimer gravestone in Coburg Jewish Cemetery. Credit: Gaby Schuller, Coburg

Two memorials remember Bella’s name in Coburg. The first is on a grave stone in the Jewish cemetery in Coburg. The gravestone identifies three people: Malwine Wertheimer (née Frankenberg), Bella’s mother; Milton Wertheimer, her husband and at the bottom, Bella. Several errors in the information on the gravestone may reflect the state of knowledge at the time the grave was installed: The birth date for Milton is wrong, as are the places of death for both Milton and Bella. But perplexing is the absence of the names of Malwine’s other children, Julius and Rosa (née Wertheimer) Edelmuth. Who sponsored the gravestone, and when, is unknown. Family members in 2021 have no knowledge of its history.

The second memorial is the Stolperstein which was laid on 21  August 2021, in front of Viktoriastraße 1.

NOTES:
With many thanks to:
• Gaby Schuller of Coburg, who researched the lives of the Wertheimer family in Coburg. She was responsible for the laying of Stolpersteine on 21 August 2021 to honour members of the family. See/listen to the text she delivered on that day.
• Lisa van de Beek who provided critical information about the life of Milton Wertheimer, which allowed us to fully develop the story of him, his wife, and other members of the Wertheimer family.