Frankfurt Stories Elise Hofmann
Hansaallee 146, 60320 Frankfurt am Main
Elise Hofmann (born 18.7.1872 in Bühl (Baden) to August Bloch and Rosalie Bloch, née Hirschhorn) moved into the retirement home of the Henry and Emma Budge Foundation on 12 September 1930. She was one of the first residents of the home, which had been built in 1928. Her daughter Gertrude, who was born in 1896 and married Alfons Levi in 1927, managed to flee from the National Socialists to America. Elise Hofmann died in Treblinka.
When the Jewish residents of the retirement home were expelled at the end of 1938, 66-year-old Elise Hofmann, a widow since 1916, moved briefly to Telemannstraße 12, then to the retirement home at Zeil 92 and finally to the Israelite Hospital at Gagernstraße 36. From there she was deported on 18 August 1942 initially to Theresienstadt and then to Treblinka on 26 September 1942. The date of her death is unknown.
The Budge Foundation retirement home was “aryanized” in 1939 and renamed “Heim am Dornbusch”. After the war, the American military authorities used it as a dental clinic up until 1995. The old buildings now belong to the Senioren-Residenz Grünhof (Grünhof Senior Residence). A new Budge Foundaton retirement home was built in Frankfurt-Seckbach in 1968. In 2011, the Budge Foundation set up a memorial there in memory of Elise Hofmann and a further 22 former residents of the old Budge retirement home.
© Hartmut Schmidt
In 2019, a Stolperstein was laid in memory of Elise Hofmann at Hansaallee 146 in front of what is now the Grünhof im Park senior citizen centre.
