Gertrude Hirschweh

In 2017 two books by Gertrude Hirschweh could be returned.

Getrude Wütow was born on March 26, 1874 in Berlin and married the owner of a pharmacy, Hermann Hirschweh (*June 16, 1865), in 1895. The couple had three children, Hertha Johanna (*June 6, 1896 in Berlin), Fritz (* ca. 1901 in Berlin) and Dorothea (*February 24, 1905 in Berlin). Hermann Hirschweh was also managing director of the Sauerstoff-Fabrik Berlin G.m.b.H., an oxygen factory, which was founded in 1900 and 'aryanised' in 1939. Gertrude Hirschweh was deported from Berlin to the Ghetto Riga on January 13, 1942 and murdered there.

Hertha Johanna Hirschweh married the gynaecologist Dr. Ernst Solms (*April 12, 1878) in 1919. Both were able to escape to the Netherlands in 1939 and survive.
 
Dorothea Hirschweh married the court-assessor Dr. Rudolf Beermann in Berlin and was able to escape with him to the United States in 1938. Dorothea tried to bring her mother to the USA with the help of the War Refugee Board, too, but probably Gertrude Hirschweh was already dead by that time. Dorothea Beermann lived in New York until her death in 1982.

Fritz Hirschweh was able to escape to the United States in 1938 with his wife Regina and their one-year-old son Hermann Michael. He died shortly after his arrival in New York in December of the same year, at the age of only 37.
 
The books were acquired by the Berlin City Library in 1943 as part of the purchase of ~40,000 books looted from the Jews of Berlin.
 
Support for this return was kindly received by the ZLB from the Rose Valland Institute in Kassel.