Alice Rönnekamp née Lindemann

Location 
Torstraße 94
Historical name
Lothringer Straße 63
District
Mitte
Stone was laid
2018
Born
13 February 1903 in Berlin
Occupation
Arbeiterin
Forced Labour
in einer Lautsprecherfabrik (Berlin/Kreuzberg)
Deportation
on 28 March 1942 to Piaski
Murdered
Alice Lindemann was born on 13 February 1903 in Dragoner Strasse, today known as Max-Beer Strasse, near Alexanderplatz. Her parents, Joseph, born in 1871 and his wife Jenny, née Cohnhagen in 1872, had another daughter, Ernestine, and three sons: Max, Kurt and Armin. The family was not well-off. Alice was a worker and was still living at home at the age of twenty-five.

In 1926 or 7, Alice got to know a good-looking, charming man from Kiel who worked behind the bar in Herr Lindemann‘s favourite local inn. He lived in the same street as her family. He seemed seriously interested in Alice, applied for a job as a bus-driver with Berlin public transport and was taken on. Charles Roennekamp ansd Alice Lindemann were married on 28 December 1928 and lived together in Mulackstrasse. Alice's Jewish parents had no objections to her marrying a gentile.

After a few years, Charles Roennekamp brought his illegitimate son home. Alice accepted the new situation and adopted the child. At about the same time the family moved into an apartment in Lothringerstrasse 63 (Torstrasse 94 today). Alice was devoted to the little boy and was an exemplary housewife and mother. The Youth Department, which was monitoring the family, confirmed their good reputation.

Alice, who was still regularly observing the Sabbath with her parents and siblings, converted to christianity in 1938 and became a protestant. The protestant Segensgemeinde in Prenzlauer Berg helped her with the formalities. Pastor Knieschke from the Messiah Chapel on Kastanienallee baptised her on 9 October 1938 and her husband was one of her godparents. Both her own baptism and her marriage to a protestant christian will have given Alice a feeling of security.

However, Charles Roennekamp divorced his wife in 1941 and married again. Alice was still registered in Lothringer Strasse but no longer lived there and lodged instead in nearby Linienstrasse. She was compelled to forced labour in the loudspeaker factory Grass & Worff (Grawor) in Kreuzberg.

Her beloved adoptive son, who was by now ten years old, no longer lived with her. He survived the Nazi regime and WW2, probably in homes, and died in the 1970s.

In March1942, Alice Roennekamp was apprehended and taken to the deportation collection point in Lewetzowstrasse in Moabit. She listed her only posessions as '1 skirt, 1 blouse, 1 pullover, 2 pairs of stockings, 1 pair of gloves, 1 pair of shoes' and wrote in her declararion of property ' I never had property or valuables, as I was a factory worker from the age of 14 and never earned more than 17-18 marks a month before deductions'.

Alice Roennekamp was deported to Piaski on the 11th transport 'to the East' on 28 March 1942. In the deportation list she is categorised as 'capable of working'. No evidence could be found as to whether she did in fact work and die in the Piaski transit camp, or was murdered in the nearby extermination camp at Belzec.

Alice Roennekamp‘s parents and her three brothers were also murdered in the Holocaust. Her sister Ernestine, whose husband was not Jewish, survived.