Johanna Ollendorff
Signature: "Johanna Baginsky. April 1887."
In 2021, one book from the library of Johanna Ollendorff was returned.
Johanna Baginsky was born in Berlin on July 17, 1870. Her parents were the merchant Wilhelm (Wolf) Baginsky (1839-1917) and Ida Baginsky née Senff (1848-1875). Johanna had one brother, Oscar Baginsky (1874-1875). On December 8, 1903, she married the physician Alfred Joseph Ollendorff (1867-1911) in Berlin. The couple had no children.
Johanna Ollendorff was persecuted as Jewish in Germany. According to the 1939 census, she was living at Auguststraße 92 in Berlin-Mitte at that time. She was deported on January 13, 1942 (then living at Weinbergsweg 4, Berlin-Mitte) with the 8th transport in the first phase of deportations from Berlin to the Riga Ghetto, where she was murdered. An exact date of death is not known.
The returned book contains an autograph ("Johanna Baginsky. April 1887."), a pasted bouquet of pressed flowers with the inscription "Remembrance" and a dedication:
"If, in much later days
You may fondly remember
The many pleasant hours
That passed away so quickly
I will not fail to ask
For you to grant me
A place in your heart's chamber
So wherever you may live
Be it the greatest of all cities
Never quite forget
Your dear friend Grete. [Samelson]
The last name Samelson is added, probably by Johanna Ollendorff. The donor was almost certainly Margarete Samelson, born in Berlin on November 15, 1871. She was deported to Theresienstadt in 1942, and subsequently to Treblinka, where she was murdered.
The path of acquisition of the volume into the holdings of the Zentral- und Landesbibliothek (Central and Regional Library Berlin, ZLB) is unclear and could not be traced. The object was found in unprocessed depot holdings of the Berliner Stadtbibliothek (Berlin City Library, BStB, a predecessor of today's ZLB).
However, the contained provenances suggest an acquisition via a purchase of ~40,000 Nazi-looted books that previously belonged to Berliners persecuted as Jewish which was made by the Berliner Stadtbibliothek in 1943.