Rosa Lewin, née Hirsch, was born in Kiel on 1 January 1867. She first married Adolf Lewin from Riga in 1897 and had two children, Fanny and Bernhard. After a later marriage to railway employee Max Alfred Fitkau ended in divorce, she resumed the name Lewin and worked as a second-hand goods dealer in Kiel. With little income, she depended on support from her sister Dora, who ran a successful piano business. After 1933, Rosa faced increasing exclusion and persecution. During the November 1938 pogrom, Dora’s business — and probably Rosa’s — was destroyed and seized. In 1940 and 1941, the sisters were forcibly moved into so-called “Jews’ houses.” On 6 December 1941, they were deported from Kiel to Riga. Their exact deaths remain unknown. Rosa was declared dead in 1951; her daughter Fanny survived Theresienstadt, while her son Bernhard emigrated to Palestine.
