Sophie Sondhelm was born in 1887 in the market town of Kleinlangheim. Under her management, the Jewish children's sanatorium in Bad Kreuznach became a nationally renowned and highly regarded health resort. A school in Bad Kreuznach bears her name.
Sophie Sondhelm
Born on 18.03.1887 in Kleinlangheim
Father: Seligmann Sondhelm (baker)
Occupation: Nurse / Home Manager
Deported on 10.2.1943 from Darmstadt to the Theresienstadt ghetto, on 9.10.1944 to the concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz
Sophie Sondhelm was the last director of the "Isenburg" home. She was born on 18 March 1887 in the market town of Kleinlangheim near Kitzingen am Main. The Sondhelm family had lived there for several generations. Sophie had four sisters and one brother, but he died young. His father, Seligmann Sondhelm, was a baker by profession.
Sophie Sondhelm trained as a nurse at the "Israelite Asylum for the Sick and Weak" in Cologne and then worked as a surgical nurse in Cologne. When the Jewish Women's Association of the City of Cologne opened the "Cologne Jewish Children's Hospital Bad Kreuznach" in Bad Kreuznach in 1920, Sophie Sondhelm took over the management. She ran the modern hospital energetically and with great love for her protégés, so that the children's sanatorium was soon known nationwide as an exemplary institution. Sophie Sondhelm's niece Raya later characterized her aunt and her commitment: "She was an excellent organizer, great economist and understanding pedagogue."
Similar to the institution in Neu-Isenburg, the Bad Kreuznach home was run strictly according to the Jewish rules of faith, because Sophie Sondhelm was deeply religious. Unlike Bertha Papenheim, however, Sophie Sondhelm recognized the dangers of National Socialism early on. Immediately after the Nazi seizure of power, she gradually transformed the children's recreation center into a training center for young people preparing to emigrate to Palestine.
In November 1938, during the pogrom, the "Cologne Jewish Children's Hospital Bad Kreuznach" was also attacked, the inventory and medical equipment were destroyed. The Nazi authorities took this devastation as an opportunity to close the facility because of alleged "filth". Sophie Sondhelm then returned to Cologne, where she worked in a kindergarten and organized a Kindertransport to Palestine, which she also wanted to accompany. But when she was the only one who received an exit permit or certificate for Palestine, but not the children, she refused. While Sophie Sondhelm helped many other people to flee Germany, she herself let all opportunities to leave the country pass unused.
A short time later, Sophie Sondhelm took over the management of a retirement home in Gailingen on the Swiss border. However, this home was soon closed, and the residents who were unable to work were deported. With those who remained, Sophie Sondhelm found temporary new accommodation in the Jewish Community Centre in Constance.
On November 18, 1941, the Hesse-Nassau district office of the Reich Association of Jews in Germany in Frankfurt reported to the Offenbach Secret State Police:
"The former director of this home, which belonged to the Reich Association of Jews in Germany, Miss Helene Sara Krämer, has emigrated. We have in her place Sister Sofie Sara Sondhelm, born 18.3.1887 in Kleinlangheim, identification card: J, registration town Bad Kreuznach, identification no. A-00611, former director of the children's home in Bad Kreuznach, later director of the retirement home in Geilingen, entrusted with the management of the home. We ask that the person named be granted permission to move in."
In Neu-Isenburg, Sophie Sondhelm had the difficult task of organizing the dissolution of the home and at the same time giving her protégés a home.
After the "Isenburg" home was vacated at the end of March 1942, Sophie Sondhelm moved to Darmstadt on April 5 to the Jewish retirement home at Eschollbrückerstraße 4 1/2. For many people from Darmstadt and the province of Starkenburg, the facility was the last stop before their deportation. Sophie Sondhelm probably worked here as a nurse.
In Darmstadt, Sophie Sondhelm soon came under the scrutiny of the Gestapo because she had omitted the suffix "Sara" from a letter from the sender and signature. She therefore stood before the criminal judge in May 1942.
Sophie Sondhelm lived in Darmstadt for another nine months. On February 20, 1943, the 55-year-old was deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto. Here, too, she worked as a nurse. In October 1944, she was deported to the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp, where she was murdered in the gas chambers of Birkenau.
In Bad Kreuznach, a path and a school were named after her. The street sign is the only reminder in the cityscape of the great mother superior of the Jewish children's hospital on the Cecilienhöhe.
Oskar Friedel
Home IGS Sophie Sondhelm