Dr. med.
Alfred Lipstein
1876 - 1942

The Family of Alfred and Hilde Lipstein

Alfred Lipstein was born on June 3, 1876, in Königsberg—then Prussian, now Russian Kaliningrad—the son of Wolf Lipstein and his wife Ida. He grew up in a large Jewish family with several siblings (Paula Pauline Hirschfeldt, Helene Mühsam, Bertha Born, Leo [Leopold] Lipstein, and Rosa Jaffé). In 1907, he married Hilda Lipstein (née Sulzbach), who had been born in Frankfurt on November 4, 1886.

Hilda Lipstein was the daughter of the Jewish banker and patron of the arts Karl Sulzbach and his wife Edith (née Kohn-Speyer). Alfred and Hilde Lipstein had four children: daughters Beate and Margot, and sons Kurt and Walter. The children were baptized as Christians in Frankfurt in 1918. Their son Kurt Lipstein (born March 19, 1909) emigrated to England and became a prominent legal scholar at the University of Cambridge; he died in 2006. Margot (1914–2006) and Walter (1918–1981) managed to flee to the USA, where they changed their surname from Lipstein to Lipton.

Beate Lipstein-Davidson, born on May 19, 1912, had a remarkable career as a physician.

She began her medical studies in Frankfurt but was forced to interrupt them in 1933 for political reasons. After fleeing to Rome, she completed her studies there and married the dentist Dr. Peter Davidson in 1939. He was born in Hildesheim on December 25, 1911—the son of the physician couple Dr. Arnold Davidson and Dr. Clara Davidson-Pietrkowski—and had also fled Germany for Italy. Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, Beate and Peter Davidson emigrated to Palestine, where they lived in various Kibbutzim for over seven years. Their children, Joram (1942) and Ruthi (1948), were born in Israel

Beate worked as a qualified gynecologist and was actively involved in providing birth control services to Arab and Jewish women. After separating from her husband Peter in 1961, she married Dr. Avram Avamoff around 1970 and founded the Soroptimist service club for professional women, as well as YAEL, a volunteer organization supporting hospital staff. She lived to the age of 102, passing away on February 18, 2015.

In Frankfurt, the Lipstein family lived at Westendstraße 23, then at Kettenhofweg 121, and finally at Gaußstraße 30.

Education and Professional Career

Alfred Lipstein studied medicine in Freiburg, Heidelberg, Munich, and Kiel. In 1899, after passing his state examination in Heidelberg, he received both his medical license and his doctorate. With a view to his future career as a specialist in gastrointestinal diseases, he wrote his doctoral thesis on a topic in visceral medicine titled “Contributions to the Case Studies of Liver Surgery,” a project he completed with the support of the Heidelberg surgeons Vinzenz Czerny and Walther Petersen.

After moving to Frankfurt am Main, he worked as an assistant physician at the local Institute of Pathology before moving to Berlin for further training and specialization. Upon returning to Frankfurt, Lipstein served for a long time as an assistant to Paul Ehrlich; Ehrlich had been making medical history since 1899—following his time in Berlin—as the developer of the first chemotherapeutic agent.

In 1907, Alfred Lipstein established a practice in Frankfurt am Main, initially as a general practitioner. According to the 1910 *Reichsmedizinalkalender* (Imperial Medical Directory)—and indicated by a stomach symbol—Lipstein was practicing independently in Frankfurt by that time as a specialist in gastrointestinal and metabolic diseases. He served in World War I as a battalion physician with Infantry Regiment 140.

1933 -1942

In 1930, more than 30,000 Jews lived in Frankfurt am Main. Following the National Socialists’ seizure of power, they were increasingly vilified, terrorized, and stripped of their livelihoods. By 1939, approximately half of Frankfurt’s Jewish population had fled into exile. Others facing antisemitic persecution moved to the city from rural regions, seeking protection in the anonymity of the metropolis and hoping for better opportunities to emigrate. Consequently, nearly 10,000 Jews remained in Frankfurt in 1941. Beginning in October 1941, the Gestapo (Secret State Police) organized the deportation of these individuals to concentration and extermination camps. The Gestapo rented the basement of the wholesale market hall in Frankfurt to serve as an assembly point.

Gestapo personnel, officials from the tax office, and representatives of other municipal and state institutions awaited those persecuted as Jews there. Among other things, the victims were required to pay fifty Reichsmark for rail transport, surrender their identification cards and declarations of assets, and submit to body searches; following this humiliating process—which in some instances involved physical abuse – wait in a makeshift dormitory in the cellar for their departure. Meanwhile, daily market operations continued, even though the brutal events did not go unnoticed by those working there.

The Lipstein couple was deported from Frankfurt to the Theresienstadt transit and concentration camp on September 15, 1942, as part of the ninth major deportation wave. Indeed, from August 1942 onwards, Theresienstadt was the primary destination for these deportations. Originally founded as a garrison town of the Austrian monarchy in the late 18th century, the town was converted by the Nazi regime in 1941—following the forced eviction of the Czech population—into a ghetto initially for Czech Jews and, from June 1942, for German Jews as well. People over the age of 65, the frail over 55, and wounded or decorated veterans of the First World War (along with their families) had initially been spared from the deportations that took place in the spring of 1942; this group was now deported to Theresienstadt in several transports. The Nazi regime altered the organizational routine in two respects. Jews designated for deportation to Theresienstadt were required to sign a compulsory “home purchase contract” (*Heimeinkaufsvertrag*); this stipulated the transfer of their entire assets to the *Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland* (Reich Association of Jews in Germany) in exchange for the—entirely fictitious—promise of lifelong accommodation in a care facility in Theresienstadt. Ultimately, the assets collected by the *Reichsvereinigung* were confiscated by the Gestapo. The other change concerned the organization of the transport itself. Various retirement homes now served as assembly points for the elderly—often frail—individuals; from there, they were taken by truck to the wholesale market hall and subsequently transported to Theresienstadt via passenger trains departing from the rail siding located there.

Why did the Lipstein couple not emigrate before the onset of persecution, while escape was still possible? Pastor Thomas Sinning of the Protestant Dreikönigsgemeinde (Three Kings Congregation) in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen answers this question in his remarks at the May 12, 2011, ceremony marking the laying of *Stolpersteine* (memorial stones) for the Lipstein couple at Westendstraße 23. The Lipstein family had a special connection to this church, as their four children had been baptized there in 1918. Alfred’s wife, Hilde Lipstein (née Sulzbach), had a brother named Edmund—known as Eddi—who suffered from epilepsy. Because she had promised her parents before their deaths that she would look after him, the couple remained in Frankfurt. It was this very care, sense of responsibility, and loyalty that prevented them from escaping persecution and led to their becoming victims of the dehumanizing Nazi regime. Two weeks after the deportation, on October 1, 1942, Alfred Lipstein died in Theresienstadt at the age of 66. The death certificate issued by Dr. Wolf Rübner lists the cause of death as “Suizidium” (suicide).

His wife, Hilde, had already died on September 16, 1942, at the age of 55—upon arrival in Theresienstadt—likewise by suicide, according to her death certificate

In conclusion, and to ensure we do not forget, here is the prayer offered by Frankfurt Rabbi Andy Steiman: “Through this act of remembrance, we seek to restore a sense of belonging to those who were once forcibly driven away from this place. We wish to join hands and form a circle around these stones—to welcome back into our midst the souls who once lived and worked here. From this moment on, let them be among us once more—right here, where they stood before they were forced to embark on their path of suffering. We mourn for them—and for the loss we inflicted upon ourselves, first by excluding them and then by forgetting them.”