Bertha Davids, née Spier and son Otto David - Harsefelder Str. 31

Bertha Davids, née Spierrth

Bertha Bella Spier was born in 1865 and was married to Abraham (Albert) Davids. The marriage produced two children, Erna and Otto Davids.

The family lived in Stade from 1908, where Abraham (Albert) Davids ran his business as a cattle dealer at 31 Harsefelder Strasse. The Davids family belonged to the small Jewish community of Stade.

After the death of her husband, Bertha Davids was forcibly relocated to Hamburg - first to the Jewish retirement home at Rothenbaumchaussee 217 - and then to the so-called "Jews' house" (Jewish community center) at Benneckestraße 6.

On July 15, 1942, she was deported to the Nazi forced labor camp Theresienstadt. Bertha Davids died there on September 15, 1942.

Otto Davids

Due to a mental illness, his son Otto Davids received several medical treatments at a young age. Between 1931 and 1933, he had to spend time in Stade Hospital and the Jacoby’sche Israelitische Heil- und Pflegeanstalt  in Sayn (now Bendorf near Koblenz). According to his own reports, he already felt persecuted by the National Socialists at this time.
In 1935, the public health officer applied for Otto Davids to be sterilized - against his will. After unsuccessfully resisting the threat of forced sterilization, Otto is first examined at the Lüneburg State Sanatorium and finally has to undergo the procedure at Stade Hospital in May 1936.
After his father's death, he is treated at the Israelite Hospital in Hamburg from 10 to 17 June 1940. He was then transferred again to the Israelite Jacoby’s Sanatorium and Nursing Home, which was included by the National Socialists in the organization of the „Final Solution to the Jewish Question“ – the Holocaust – from December 1940.

Otto David was deported further east in 1942. Otto Davids was presumably part of the last transport to the German concentration camp Izbica (June 24, 1942) and perished there.