Betty Heymann née Weinkrantz

born 5 September 1882 in Bartenstein (Polish: Bartoszyce)
died 1942 (?) in Sobibor (Polish: Sobibór)
Historical former address Junkerstraße 13
Stumbling stone Reinheimer Straße 11
Date of stone-laying 17 November 2009

Betty Weinkrantz was born in Bartenstein (Polish: Bartoszyce) in the rural district of Friedland (Polish: Frydland) on 5 Septem­ber 1882. She came from a well-known Jewish family from Lauenburg (Polish: Lębork) in Pomerania. Her father Julius Joel Weinkrantz was a cantor and teacher there. Betty had five siblings – Alfred, born in 1878, Doris, born in 1881, Gertrud, born in 1884, Cilla, born in 1886, and Else, born in 1888. Cilla, Alfred and Gertrud emigrated to the United States in the 1920s and were able to escape the National Socialist terror. Doris and Else were both murdered in the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp.

Betty married David Heymann and moved with him to Fürstenwalde in 1911. Near the market square, they ran a branch of the wholesale warehouse chain “Hamburg Engros-Lager”, selling cotton underwear, haberdashery and knitwear. The family of four – son Erich was born in 1912, daughter Ilse in 1917 – lived at Junkerstraße 13 in Fürstenwalde.

On 9 November 1938, the night of the Novem­ber pogroms, a mob destroyed their shop on the market – destroying the family’s livelihood in the process. Soon after, Betty and David Heymann left Fürstenwalde and moved to Berlin. From there, the couple was deported to the Sobibor extermination camp (Polish: Sobibór) on 13 June  1942 and murdered. Their daughter Ilse managed to escape to the United States; their son Erich Heymann was murdered in the Auschwitz-Birkenau exter­mination camp in 1943.

Family members:
David Heymann
Erich Heymann
Fanni Heymann née Klappholz
Ilse Paull née Heymann