Elsbeth Perlstein - English

Elsbeth Perlstein, daughter of the apron manufacturer and merchant Gustav Löwenthal was born on January 27, 1891 in Magdeburg. She is the first of three children. Her father runs a laundry business under the company name ‚Löwenthal & Co.‘ at Kaiserstraße 95 (later Otto-von-Guericke-Straße), where she grows up. On October 25, 1917, during the first World War, Elsbeth marries the Berlin merchant Richard Perlstein, who runs a office machine business and later a printing press. The married couple lives in Berlin but soon moves to Mannheim, where their two sons Alfred and Rudi Johanis are born.  

After the first World War, there seem to be problems in the marriage and Elsbeth leaves Mannheim in the spring of 1927. 1928 the marriage is divorced and Elsbeth comes back to her parental home in Magdeburg. Both of her sons stay with Richard Perlstein and are taken care of by an unmarried childcare worker. Since 1927 Elsbeth lives with her parents in Magdeburg again. First at Karl-Ludwig-Straße 23 and later in Blücherstraße 1 (now Behringstraße). There she takes care of her mother until her death in 1930 and continues to look after her father.  

After the November Pogroms of 1938, Elsbeth Perlstein and her father are forced to leave their apartment and moved into a so-called „Jewhouse“ at Brandenburger Straße 2a. There they live in cramped and isolated conditions. Her father passes away on June 29, 1942, which spared him from deportation. However, on July 13, 1942 Elsbeth is deported with the second transport from Magdeburg „to the East“, presumably to Auschwitz. She never comes back to Magdeburg.  

Her ex-husband, Richard Perlstein, is arrested in 1938 in connection with the November Pogroms and taken to the Dachau concentration camp. He survives and leaves Germany after his release in December 1938. Additionally, his new wife Edith and his son Rudi Johanis survive and they arrive together in the USA in 1940. In North Rhine-Westphalia, there are children or grandchildren of Elsbeth’s brother Kurt Löwenthal living today.