19Rosa Schmidt – Hotel Hohenzollern

Rosa Grill-Freimann was born on March 3, 1882 in Zölkiew/Galicia. While traveling by ship, the educator met Arthur Schmidt, who came from a long-established Weimar family and worked as a chef on the ship. The young couple initially ran a hotel in Alexandria/Egypt, but moved back to Germany with their children during the First World War. After the war, Rosa and Arthur Schmidt took over the Hotel Hohenzollern at Weimar station, which also included a beer bar. It was located on the first floor in the right-hand half of the building. In June 1944, Arthur Schmidt was issued with a penalty order because he had not entered his wife as Jewish in the household list. Although she was Protestant, she was considered a "full Jew" and her four children were considered "half-breeds of the first degree". A few months later, Rosa Schmidt was arrested and deported to the Auschwitz extermination camp, where she was murdered on November 28, 1944. In December, shortly before his own death, her husband wrote to the Auschwitz camp commandant asking for her remains to be sent to him. It is unclear whether he received an urn. Rosa Schmidt's name can be found on a small family gravestone in Weimar's main cemetery.