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 Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp
Sophie Sondhelm was the last director of the "Isenburg" home. She was born on March 18, 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 a brother who died young. Her father, Seligmann Sondhelm, was a baker by trade.
Sophie Sondhelm trained as a nurse at the "Israelite Asylum for the Sick and Aged" 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 Sanatorium Bad Kreuznach" in Bad Kreuznach in 1920, Sophie Sondhelm took over the management. She ran the modern institution energetically and with great love for her charges, so that the children's sanatorium was soon known throughout the region as an exemplary institution. Sophie Sondhelm's niece Raya later described her aunt and her commitment: "She was an excellent organizer, a great economist and an understanding teacher."
Like the facility in Neu-Isenburg, the Bad Kreuznach home was run strictly according to Jewish religious rules, as Sophie Sondhelm was deeply religious. Unlike Bertha Papenheim, however, Sophie Sondhelm recognized the dangers of National Socialism early on. Immediately after the Nazis seized power, she gradually transformed the children's recreation center into a training center for young people preparing to emigrate to Palestine.
In November 1938, the "Kölner Jüdische Kinderheilanstalt Bad Kreuznach" was also attacked during the pogrom; the inventory and medical equipment were destroyed. The Nazi authorities took this devastation as an opportunity to close the institution due to alleged "filthiness". Sophie Sondhelm then returned to Cologne, where she worked in a kindergarten and organized a children's transport to Palestine, which she also wanted to accompany. But when she alone received an exit permit or certificate for Palestine, but not the children, she refused. While Sophie Sondhelm helped many other people to escape from Germany, she herself let all opportunities to leave pass her by.
A short time later, Sophie Sondhelm took over the management of a retirement home in Gailingen on the Swiss border. However, this home was also soon closed and the residents who were unable to work were deported. Sophie Sondhelm found temporary accommodation with the remaining residents in the Jewish Community Center in Constance.
On November 18, 1941, the Hesse-Nassau district office of the Reich Association of Jews in Germany in Frankfurt notified the Offenbach Secret State Police:
"The previous director of this home belonging to the Reich Association of Jews in Germany, Miss Helene Sara Krämer, has emigrated. In her place we have entrusted Sister Sofie Sara Sondhelm, born March 18, 1887 in Kleinlangheim, identification card: J, place of identification Bad Kreuznach, identification number A-00611, former director of the Bad Kreuznach children's home, later director of the Geilingen old people's home, with the management of the home. We request that the named person be granted permission to move in."
In Neu-Isenburg, Sophie Sondhelm had the difficult task of organizing the closure of the home and at the same time giving her charges a home.
After the "Isenburg" home was vacated at the end of March 1942, Sophie Sondhelm moved to the Jewish old people's home at Eschollbrückerstraße 4 ½ in Darmstadt on April 5. The facility was the last stop for many people from Darmstadt and the Starkenburg province before their deportation. Sophie Sondhelm probably worked here as a carer.
In Darmstadt, Sophie Sondhelm was soon targeted by the Gestapo because she had omitted the suffix "Sara" from the sender's name and signature on a letter. She was therefore brought before the criminal court 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.
A road and a school in Bad Kreuznach were named after her. The street sign is the only reminder in the townscape of the great matron of the Jewish children's sanatorium on Cecilienhöhe.
