Alma Rosenbaum
1859 - 1936

Alma Levi was born in Darmstadt on February 20, 1859, the daughter of Elias Levi (1819-?), a native of Worms, and Ernestine Louise Levi, née Oppenheim (1834-?), from Frankfurt on the Main. Both parents were Jewish.

Alma married Saly Rosenbaum, a Jew born in Frankfurt on the Main in 1854. His father Samuel Rosenbaum came from Königstein im Taunus (1821-1889), while his mother Jette, née Cahn (1825-1887), was also from Frankfurt. Saly Rosenbaum temporarily ran the company "Rosenbaum & Sohn", founded in 1866, with his brother Louis Rosenbaum, later alone. This was a company for construction timber, boards and parquettes as well as coal and firewood, which was located in 1890 in the small Obermain street 14/16 and had a storage area in Uhland street 15/17. In 1900, this company was described in Mahlau's Frankfurt address book as a "Sägewerk, Holzhandlung, Parquetten, Fassdauben, ausländische Hölzer" (sawmill, timber trade, parquettes, barrel staves, foreign timber).

Alma and Saly Rosenbaum had a daughter named Martha, who was born in Frankfurt on September 24, 1885. At that time, the family lived at Uhland street 40, in the heavily Jewish Ostend district. Martha married in Frankfurt on the Main in June 1923 the "royal Bavarian merchant" and retired lieutenant colonel baron Eduard Oskar Wilhelm von Brück, a Christian, who had divorced in 1914. Their son Karl-Heinrich Ralf Eduard von Brück was born in Frankfurt in May 1924. Her husband died in Frankfurt on the Main in April 1928. Alma Rosenbaum lived at Gutleutstrasse 21 in Frankfurt until the end.

According to the membership directory of the Frankfurt on the Main section of the German and Austrian Alpine Club from 1925, Alma Rosenbaum had already joined the section in 1879. However, the old membership directories, e.g., dating from 1904 and 1911, only mention S. Rosenbaum, i.e. her husband Saly Rosenbaum. He was indeed active in the section. In March 1911, at the age of 57, he and Carl Barth led a hike through the Odenwald from Großumstadt via Breuberg, Otzberg, and Zipfen to Wiebelsbach.

In the annual report of the Frankfurt section of 1912, Saly Rosenbaum's daughter Martha Rosenbaum is also named as a member, but not Alma Rosenbaum. Martha was also active in mountaineering in the Alps. The Frankfurt annual report of 1913 notes under "Fräulein Martha Rosenbaum" the crossing of the Großer Fermedaturm (2873m) in the Geisler group and the crossing of the Kleine Tschierspitze (also Cirspitze, 2520m) as well as the ascent of the second and third Sella Tower (2598m and 2696m), all in the Dolomites.

After the First World War, only Alma Rosenbaum is named as a member of the section in the first surviving list of members from 1925. This is probably due to the fact that Saly Rosenbaum presumably died in 1923. From the Frankfurt address book of 1924 onwards, Alma Rosenbaum is listed as a widow living at Gutleut street 21. Martha Rosenbaum , after her marriage, also does not appear under "von Brück" in the 1925 list of members, so she must have left the section during or shortly after the First World War.

Alma Rosenbaum supported the Frankfurt on the Main section with small donations. For example, she donated RM 3 for poor children in the Kaunertal, i.e. the Frankfurt section area in Tyrol, as part of the 1929 Christmas donations. According to the Nachrichten-Blatt of January 1930, "A. Rosenbaum" also donated RM 3 for the construction of the new Rauhekopfhütte. We are currently unable to say how she took part in the section's events. We also do not know whether she left or was expelled from the section in 1933 or later. As a Jewess, who very probably only joined the Frankfurt on the Main section of the German and Austrian Alpine Club in 1923, she could no longer remain a member after the introduction of the so-called "Arierparagraf" (Aryan paragraph) in February 1934 at the latest. Therefore, at the annual general meeting in February 1937, she--unlike the Jewish doctor Dr. Rudolf Schild--was not named among the deceased of 1936, who were to be remembered faithfully.

Alma Rosenbaum continued to live at Gutleut street 21 during the National Socialist era. The community gazette of the Jewish Community of Frankfurt on the Main of February 1936 notes on p. 192 that Alma Georgine Rosenbaum, née Levi, resident at Gutleut street 21, died at the age of 76. This proves that she was a member of the Jewish community until the end.

We have no precise information about the fate of her daughter Martha von Brück. Her Christian husband had already died in 1928, so as a Jewish woman with a Christian baptized child, she was exposed to persecution by the National Socialists. Her son Karl-Heinrich survived the persecution--he was considered a so-called "Mischling first grade" by the Nazi state--and married the Christian Elisabeth Rückert in Leipzig in May 1945. He passed away in Berlin in 1993.