Heinemanhof - former Jewish old people's home

Dannie N. Heineman (1872-1962) was born in the USA to German-Jewish emigrants and remained an American citizen throughout his life. After his father's death, he and his mother returned to Germany and lived in their native Hanover from 1883. Heinemann graduated from the Technical University of Hanover as an electrical engineer, worked for AEG Berlin and other companies, and made a career as a manager for a large Belgian electrical corporation. His mother died in Hanover in 1927. In memory of his parents, the now wealthy son founded the charitable "Minna James Heineman Foundation" for the establishment of an old people's home "for single ladies of the educated classes, preferably Hanoverians of the Jewish faith".

The old people's home was built in 1930 as the "Heinemanhof" according to a design by the renowned Belgian architect Henry van de Velde as an elongated three-story clinker brick building in the New Objectivity style. The building offered generously proportioned apartments for the elderly for about 60 residents (including staff). The surrounding park was designed by the Hanoverian garden and landscape architect Wilhelm Hübotter (who a few years later provided the plans for the SS cult site Sachsenhain near Verden).

Between September and November 1941, the building served as one of 15 forced quarters for Hanover's Jews ("Judenhäuser"). Hardly any of the older residents survived the subsequent deportations to the camps in Riga, Warsaw, Auschwitz or Theresienstadt. Until the end of the war, the facility was used by the Nazi People's Welfare Organization as a home for the elderly, after which British soldiers moved in. In 1960, the re-established "Minna James Heineman Foundation" sold the facility to the city of Hanover, which first housed a homeless shelter here and since 1965 has greatly expanded the building complex as a retirement and nursing home.