Charlotte Perutz was born May 18, 1855 in Nuremberg. She was the daughter of the merchant Salomon Lust from Königsberg and his wife Rosa, née Wertheimer. Charlotte had two brothers, Alfred and Hermann. Her first marriage was in 1878 in Königsberg to Louis Kann, who died on June 5, 1893. The marriage was childless.
On October 15, 1901, she married the chemist Otto Perutz, born July 27, 1847 in Teplitz-Schönau, North Bohemia. Otto Perutz pioneered the colour photography with the development of highly sensitive emulsion plates. He was the owner of the company „Trockenplattenfabrik München GmbH“ in Munich. Streets in Munich-Trudering and Bruckmühl-Heufeld are named after him.

Otto Perutz had already been married once; his Jewish wife Caroline died January 17, 1896 in Munich. They had six sons, of whom only one, Felix, born on February 27, 1875 in Heufeld near Rosenheim, survived childhood.
Dr. Felix Samson Perutz, Otto Perutz’s son from his first marriage, had his surgery at Sonnenstrasse 12. He held various honorary positions, including caring for the children in the Protestant orphanage in Kaulbachstrasse. In 1896 he converted from the Jewish faith to the Protestantism and married the protestant Helene Schöttle in 1902. They had a son and two daughters. After the death of his wife in 1933, he lived in the house that he owned at Königinstrasse 69. In 1935, the protestant Dr. Felix Perutz was considered a Jew by the authorities because of his Jewish origins. Deeply shaken by his exclusion from Munich society and his previous circumstances, he committed suicide on November 11, 1937. Since 2022, there has been a memorial sign for him at Königinstrasse 69.
There are several descendants of Felix still alive, e.g. his grandson Benno von Rechenberg.

Charlotte and Otto first lived at Maximiliansplatz 5, then in 1908 they moved into a stately apartment on the 1st floor of Martiusstrasse 8. The apartment covered about 300 square meters and consisted of a dining room, living room, salon, bedroom, guest room, gentleman´s room, bathroom, dressing room and two girls‘ bedrooms. According to descriptions by contemporaries, the apartment was furnished with antique furniture and in every room, there were expensive Persian carpets.
The „large dining room was equipped with heavy furniture, the chairs had high backs“. The Perutz couple also collected art, and tapestries and valuable paintings hung in the apartment.
The marriage of Otto and Charlotte Perutz remained childless, and Otto Perutz died on January 18, 1922. His widow Charlotte remained in the apartment, which she shared for a time with Anna Lust (born on February 11, 1880 in Hamburg). Anna was the wife of her brother Alfred, who had died in 1923. Anna Lust lived in Charlotte’s household from September 1925 to August 1927, from December 1930 to October 1933, and from early 1934 until her emigration to New Jersey in April 1937.

Following the Kristallnacht pogrom on November 9, 1938, the pressure of persecution for Munich’s Jews intensified. Until November 1938, Charlotte Perutz had to „hand over the jewellery and the utility silver“, „and her bank account was also blocked“.

Charlotte’s housekeeper Therese Benedikt reported the following: „At that time it was said that the carpets and paintings had been confiscated by the Nazis“ and „Mrs. Perutz is not allowed to take anything away and she is not allowed to sell anything anymore.“. Charlotte’s second housekeeper Hermine Kreilinger described the events in a witness statement in 1960 as follows: „A Mr. Alt from the Helbig company“ came who bought the paintings. „Mrs. Perutz did not get the money; it was transferred to a bank.“ „Half an hour before“ appeared „Counsellor Königsberger“ who „valued the jewellery and silverware. These things were packed and driven away after a few days.“. According to a testimony by Alice Morgenroth, a niece of Charlotte, the paintings included a portrait of a woman by Lenbach, engravings by Dürer, a work by Max Liebermann, a painting by Wouwermann, „with the famous white horses“ and „there was also a real Leibl.“. Nothing is known about the further whereabouts of this looted art and the current owners.

Since April 1939, with the withdrawal of legal tenant protection, the legal prerequisites had been created for expelling Jews from their apartments or forcibly assigning them Jewish subtenants. In addition to the exploitation of the vacant apartments, the aim of this measure was to ghettoize Munich’s Jews and cram them together in confined spaces.

From January 21, 1939, to April 1, 1939, Sabine Bachmann and Bertha Dispeker were registered with Charlotte. Bertha Dispeker previously lived at Kaulbachstrasse 26 with Mina Lewin. It remains unclear whether she lost her apartment because of her landlady’s emigration to Australia. Since the NSDAP in Munich had already evicted Jews from their apartments even before the Reich-wide legal regulation had come into force, it can be assumed that Bertha Dispeker and Sabine Bachmann were also evicted and sent to Charlotte. As a result, Charlotte Perutz had to give up two rooms, which were probably then occupied by Jews who had been evicted somewhere else.

On March 28, 1941, Charlotte Perutz, who was almost 86 years old at the time, had to leave her apartment, where she had lived for 33 years. According to the memories of the housekeeper Hermine Kreilinger, Franz Mugler, SA Obersturmführer and employee of the so-called „Aryanization Office“, came to Charlotte’s apartment beforehand. The task of the „Aryanization office“ located at the office of the Gauleiter was not only to displace the Jews from economic life but also to drive them out of their homes. Mugler „behaved very boorishly towards Mrs. Perutz and reproached me for working as a Christian for a Jewish lady. He held out the prospect that I would have to go to an munitions factory.“ Mugler wrote down all the furnishings and „said that the apartment had to be vacated within three days”.

Charlotte Perutz tried to save some objects and store them with different people. For example, she sent carpets, a table and a valuable cabinet to a Jewish acquaintance living in mixed marriages in Hohenzollernstrasse for safekeeping. A cleaning lady employed by a relative had also received carpets, a velvet curtain and a mink fur for storage. She had most of her furnishings stored with a farmer in Munich-Moosach. „She still thought she could get the furniture back if there were normal times again,“ Hermine Kreilinger recalled. Until the furniture could be removed, it was stored in the hallway of the house and in the „unprotected courtyard“, where it was „exposed to the weather“. This furniture was later destroyed by an air raid. After the entire furnishings were removed, only Charlotte’s bedroom furniture and that of a small adjoining room remained. She was initially able to take this furniture with her.

There are different reports about the further use of the apartment. While Hermine Kreilinger testified that „other Jews“ came into the „vacated apartment“ „who brought the necessary household goods with them“, the caretaker reported that the remaining rooms were occupied by the „Standartenführer Stirnweiss“. This was the camp commander of the subcamp of the Dachau concentration camp in Munich – Giesing (Agfa Kamerawerke), SS-Untersturmführer Kurt Konrad Stirnweis.

Charlotte Perutz was forced to move another five times in the coming weeks. She was first sent to the Pension Leopold at Leopoldstrasse 16, then to the Pension Royal at Bayerstrasse 25, and then went through the Jewish retirement homes at Mathildenstrasse 9 and Klenzestrasse 4. She was finally deported from the Israelite hospital at Hermann-Schmid-Strasse 7 to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, where, due to the inhumane conditions according to the death report of the Council of Elders, she was sent to the old people’s home in the Kavalierkaserne on September 23, 1942 and died there of „weakness of old age and intestinal catarrh“.

Charlotte’s brother Hermann Lust, lawyer and judicial councellor, born on 13 March 1866 in Nuremberg, and his wife Emma, née Königsberger, who was born in Munich on 10 July 1870, committed suicide together on 8 June 1942 in their apartment at Siegfriedstrasse 10 because of their imminent deportation.

A few days before her deportation, Charlotte had to submit a declaration of assets on May 30, 1942, which served for the theft of her remaining possessions by the Nazi state. Of her apartment furnishings, she could only specify a bedside table, an armchair and a pillow, but no more clothes. The securities account worth about 250,000 RM, which she still owned at that time, was forfeited to the Reich and was „liquidated“ when Charlotte had already been dead for several months.

For the Nazi state, the case of Charlotte Perutz was thus closed.

August Liebmann Mayer was born October 27, 1885 in Darmstadt, son of the Jewish merchant Jonas Baruch Mayer and his wife Berta, née Liebmann. He studied art history in Munich and Berlin, came to Munich on April 22, 1904, and completed his doctoral thesis on the Spanish painter Jusepe de Ribera in 1907. After receiving his doctorate in 1908, he traveled through Europe. He spent several weeks in Spain. He was so fascinated by Toledo that he wrote a travel guide about the old imperial city and said of Toledo: „Every stone holds a memory… If the stones could talk, they would tell us that in not many cities love and hate have raged as much as here…“

On his return, he got a position at the Alte Pinakothek in Munich. There he was later a curator and finally chief conservator. At the same time, August Liebmann Mayer worked as an associate professor at the University of Munich. As a recognized expert on Spanish painting, he has written numerous publications and art historical reports. He researched and published tirelessly. In 1913 alone, he published four books and twelve essays. For his services to Spanish art, he was twice honoured with medals in Spain.

In 1920, August Liebmann Mayer married the Catholic Aloisia Däuschinger, who was born April 11, 1891 in Rabenstein, Zwiesel district. On July 15, 1929, the family moved to the first floor of Martiusstrasse 8, where their daughter Angelika Berta Auguste was born February 21, 1930. Due to his financially successful work as an expert, he was targeted by envious colleagues, who in 1930 polemically accused him of enrichment, unscientific behaviour and corruption. The director of the Germanic National Museum in Nuremberg, Ernst Zimmermann,e.g. wrote to the Bavarian Ministry of Culture of „Jewish doctors who are more dealers than art historians“. Exhausted by the anti-Semitic campaign, Liebmann Mayer asked for his dismissal from the civil service on January 30, 1931.

With the beginning of the Nazi regime, the situation became even more difficult. The resignation was not enough for his colleagues, their attacks continued and became blatantly anti-Semitic. The „Völkischer Beobachter“, the propaganda newspaper of the NSDAP, described Mayer as a „Jewish art parasite“ and ´forger of expertises´. March 1933, when the Nazis came to power, Mayer was taken into ‚protective custody´ by the Gestapo. He tried to take his own life in his cell. This deeply shocked his former superíor Friedrich Dörnhöffer, director of the Pinakotheken. He campaigned for his dismissal. Mayer was finally released in July 1933.

The family left the apartment at Martiusstrasse 8 in 1933, moved for a short time to the ground floor of Konradstrasse 6 (possibly a boarding house) and on September 29, 1933 to their house in Tutzing at Hauptstrasse 71.

Starting from April 6, 1933, the tax authorities started their prosecution. The tax office raised an additional tax claim of 115,000 Reichsmarks against Mayer. Since Mayer did not have this money, the tax office confiscated Mayer’s house in Tutzing. The National Socialists confiscated Mayer’s property, auctioned off his furniture and the valuable art collection. As a Jew, he was expelled from the Reich Chamber of Culture. Seeing the end of his professional and private existence, Mayer fled with his family to Paris at the end of 1935. Thanks to the support of friends, he was able to take his library and a few works of art with him.

They lived in a street parallel to the Rue de Rivoli and he worked there as a private scholar, author and reviewer. As a German, he was considered an undesirable foreigner by the French authorities with the beginning of the war, That is the reason why he, like many other emigrants, in 1940 was interned in a French camp as an „enemy alien“. He managed to get to Nice in 1941 and hoped that his family would follow him. But his wife Aloisia was seriously ill. She died in August 1941, when Angelika Mayer was only eleven years old. Friends of the family found a boarding school for her in Nice, the Institut Massenès, whose director was doing his best to save Jewish children. Hidden in Nice she survived the Holocaust.

The Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) confiscated their apartment in Paris, including the private library and some art objects. The works of art were sent to Germany, some went directly to Hermann Göring, who was in the process of starting a private art collection.
August Liebmann Mayer, although constantly persecuted, tried to continue to earn his living as an art expert. He changed his place of residence frequently and worked under the pseudonym Henri Antoine. Finally, Mayer was betrayed by a French art dealer. On February 3, 1944, the Gestapo arrested him in Monte Carlo and took him to the Drancy detention camp.

Employees of the ERR tried to extort information from the detainee about the locations of the large private and partly Jewish hidden private collections in the initially unoccupied south of France, which he knew as an art expert. On March 7, 1944, he was deported from there to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Because of his advanced age, the SS murdered August Liebmann Mayer presumably immediately after the arrival of the transport on March 10, 1944.

At that time, Angelika Mayer was 14 years old. She was now an orphan and stateless. Thanks to the help of friends of her parents, she survived. In 1951 she moved to the USA, where she studied art history. From 1954 onwards, she initiated various compensation proceedings with West German authorities and in the 1950s received DM 50,000 for the loss of the library, with the condition that she never again would make claims against the Federal Republic. The real value of the library was significantly higher. During its provenance research, the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen came across four paintings from August Liebmann Mayer’s art collection based on research by Susanne Kienlechner and Christian Fuhrmeister from the Central Institute for Art History. In 2010, these paintings were given back to Mayer Liebmann´s then 80-year-old daughter Angelika Mayer.

Since 1918 the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen own a portrait bust of Liebmann Mayer. The sculptor Edwin Scharff, a friend of the art historian, created it. In 2015, the bust was taken out of storage and placed in front of the office of the general director in the Neue Pinakothek in Munich. In this way, the Bavarian State Painting Collections commemorate their persecuted and murdered colleague.

In 2025 his daughter Angelika Mayer lives in a retirement home in Los Angeles. She has no children. She professed the Christian faith and worked in California as a street worker to help Mexican immigrants for a long time. After Angelika Mayer’s lawyer had asked the Bavarian State Government for a clarifying, explicit rehabilitation of August Liebmann Mayer regarding the fictitious tax fraud allegations made against him by the National Socialists, the Bavarian State Ministry of Finance complied with this request in 2013.

Since October 2021, the city of Munich has been commemorating the fate of August Liebmann Mayer with a commemorative sign (wall plaque) at Martiusstrasse 8.

Barbara Elisabeth “Betty” Schwarzhaupt was born on May 3, 1873, in Munich. Her parents were Gustav Mandelbaum (1846–1917), a manufacturer in Munich, and Berta Mandelbaum, Midas. Berta was born in 1850 and died in Regensburg at the end of 1919. She may have moved in with her daughter after the death of Betty’s husband in 1919.

One of Betty’s sisters, Emma Schwarzhaupt, was born on February 2, 1875, in Munich. She married her brother-in-law Karl Schwarzhaupt (born in 1866), the brother of Betty’s husband Salomon. Together, Emma and Karl operated the Straubing branch of the Vereinigte Kaufhaus AG, a department store chain owned by the Schwarzhaupt merchant family in a prime location on Ludwigsplatz in Straubing. The couple chose not to emigrate. Emma was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp on June 18, 1942, along with her husband. Karl was murdered there on January 20, 1943, and Emma died on March 8, 1944.

In August 2008, stumbling blocks (Stolpersteine) were laid for them in Straubing in front of their home at Obere Bachstraße 12.

Other siblings of Betty included:

• Ida Mandelbaum, born July 12, 1877, who died in infancy.
• Hugo Mandelbaum, born November 24, 1880, in Munich, died November 3, 1920, in Regensburg.
• Guido Mandelbaum, born January 4, 1883, in Munich, died in Regensburg in 1934.
• Josef Mandelbaum, born January 29, 1879, in Munich. He married Irma Einstein (born July 21, 1895, in Fellheim) on March 22, 1920. Josef and Irma were deported to Kaunas on November 21, 1941, and murdered there on November 25, 1941.

The Mandelbaum family ran a goods agency for leather, drive belts, and upholstery materials located at Klenzestraße 57 in Munich. The house was family-owned. After Gustav Mandelbaum’s death in 1917, his son Josef became co-owner of the property and moved in on February 7, 1918. The house was sold in the mid-1920s.

Since around 1893, Betty Schwarzhaupt had been married to Salomon Schwarzhaupt and lived then in Regensburg. The couple had two children:

• Heiner (Heinrich), born August 27, 1900, who died February 28, 1980, in Argentina.
• Rosa Rachel („Rosel“), born November 2, 1894, who died May 5, 1985, in New Jersey, USA.

Salomon’s parents were Emanuel Schwarzhaupt and his wife Babette, née Springer. Emanuel came from a Regensburg merchant family. In 1904, Emanuel and Babette founded aa department store in the centre of Regensburg – a more than just stately building complex in the square between Watmarkt and Goliathstraße. Emanuel and Babette died shortly after each other in 1905, and Salomon, born March 1865, took over the business with his other six siblings.

Betty’s husband Salomon died on February 18, 1919. After his death, Betty took over his share of the business and the management of the Schwarzhaupt department stores.

Persecution and Aryanization

The seizure of power by the National Socialists in 1933 was a fundamental change for all Jewish residents of the city and, of course, for the Schwarzhaupts. From now on, Jewish companies were prohibited from any advertising and calls for boycotts were part of the everyday life. Anyone who nevertheless preferred the selection of first-class quality goods at cheapest prices risked vilification and denunciation. In the summer of 1935, a three-page boycott list was printed for this purpose in the magazine „Die Ostmark“. Since August 1935, Jewish businessmen were no longer contracted by the city in public contracts.

The extermination campaign against Jewish citizens was preceded by a systematic process in which the legal system was reshaped to mirror National Socialist ideology and enforce exclusionary bans. As early as autumn 1934, the introduction to the newly enacted Tax Adjustment Acts declared:
„The tax laws are to be interpreted in accordance with the National Socialist worldview.“

One such instrument was the Reich Flight Tax, defined in a 1936 circular. It required Jews to pay between one-third (for assets from 100,000 RM) and three-quarters (for assets of 500,000 RM and more) of their property to the state. This, however, did not satisfy the Nazi regime. All proceeds from “sales” of forcibly Aryanized (i.e., “de-Judaized”) property were placed in blocked accounts at the German Gold Discount Bank (Golddiskontbank). When converted into foreign currency or transferred abroad, the bank applied exorbitant deductions—starting at 68% in June 1935 and worsening to a staggering 95% in September 1939.

Aryanization of the Schwarzhaupt Villa

The Schwarzhaupt family, who were well known in Regensburg, soon came into the sights of the Nazi regime. In particular, the extremely representative villa of the Jewish family in Klarenangerstraße, as D.-Martin-Luther-Straße was called until 1933, aroused the desire of the NSDAP. The renowned architect Heinrich von Hügel (who also built the train station in Regensburg, the theatre in Franzensbad, the casino in Bad Kissingen and the Munich armoury, among other things) had designed the late classicist villa with its Palladian echoes in 1868/69.

In the eyes of the Regensburg NSDAP party leaders, the impressive building was a perfect fit for their megalomaniac plans – the district capital of Regensburg absolutely needed a dignified and powerful „party castle“. Without further ado, the Schwarzhaupt villa was „forcibly Aryanized“, with the city of Regensburg taking over a good half of the purchase price of 61,500 Reichsmark, which was anything but voluntary. In the autumn of 1935, the villa belonged to the „Ostmark-Bauverein“, and the Gauleitung and NSDAP office moved in.

Aryanization of the Schwarzhaupt businesses

After the Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938, the „de-Judaization“ of the Betty Schwarzhaupt fashion houses began (Betty had taken over the department stores after the death of her husband). It comprised of two large buildings in a prime location: „Watmarkt 1, department store with shops, electric passenger and goods elevator, 0.032 ha (2 basements, 4 sales floors, 2 attic floors, which are used as apartments)“ and „Watmarkt 3, residential building with shops, 0.029 ha (sales rooms, at the front Watmarkt shops, the remaining floors contain apartments).“ Both buildings went to the Munich businessman Ludwig Hafner, who was a tenant in the Watmarkt and also „took over“ the Straubing company for fashion manufactory, white goods and women’s ready-to-wear founded by Emanuel Schwarzhaupt. Reading the Regensburg sales contract of January 16, 1939 today leaves a more than bitter aftertaste. The sales price for both buildings on Watmarkt was 250,000 RM, as a „technical report“ dated 16 January 1939 and included into the purchase contract, had deducted 120,000 RM from the market value for the remedy of various defects. On top of that, the „Jewish property levy“ of 91,000 RM was also due.

In the report of the building expert Oberberger, based on an inspection in May 1938, it says, among other things: „The floors of the ground floor and upper floor in the sales rooms Watmarkt 1 and 3 are in complete need of renewal. To be able to continue to use the current rooms as sales rooms, the installation of a closed staircase is necessary, as well as the widening of the main entrance, the conversion of the elevator system and the entire electric lighting and power system under plastering and the installation of an emergency lighting system. All windows in both buildings are to be re-cemented, painted, as well as the doors, including the renewal of the door locks. All rooms of the sales departments as well as the stairwells, atriums, including the cellars are to be cleaned thoroughly from their present condition and re-whitewashed in accordance with the regulations. Likewise, the façade surfaces are to be completely renewed, the doors and windows are to be painted in the same way, all sheet metal covers and roof surfaces, etc. are to be repaired, and the tower is to be removed after official measures. The inspection showed that not the slightest building maintenance had been carried out in the main part or in the adjoining rooms since its construction. (…) When determining the sum, the business situation of the two buildings is fully taken into account”. On April 3, 1939, the city of Regensburg issued new demands that Mrs. Schwarzhaupt was to remedy all listed deficiencies by May 1, 1939, at her own expense. Failure to do so would result in judicial enforcement. An internal report criticized the building’s neglected state, remarking that such conditions were “only known from Jews.”

The legal representative of the Schwarzhaupt family, Karl Jakob Michael was downgraded to „consultant“ after the ban on Jewish lawyers from practising his profession on 30 November 1938. Therefore, he was not allowed to wear a robe in court, instead he had to visibly wear the Jewish star, could not work as defendent in criminal cases and had to pay a proud seventy percent of his income to the tax authorities. When he later asked at the Nuremberg Regional Finance Office after the whereabouts of the „Aryanized“ assets of the Schwarzhaupt family, he received the laconic answer on March 10, 1942: „The assets of the aforementioned emigrated Jews have undoubtedly been forfeited to the Reich because they have lost their German citizenship through emigration.“

Flight and Emigration

Heiner Schwarzhaupt, Betty’s son, had once played football for Jahn Regensburg. He and his wife Lorle, née Löwenthal, managed to save their lives and their daughters’ lives by emigrating to Palestine in July 1938, even before the forced sale of the family’s business properties. From there, they traveled by steamer to Argentina, eventually settling in Buenos Aires. They initially took only their eldest daughter Eva, who was eleven at the time.

Irma (age seven) and Ruth (age two) followed in February 1939 under the care of their aunt Rosa Rachel (Rosel) Frank, Heiner’s sister. Rosa Rachel who then returned to Germany joining her husband Dr. Julius Jakob Frank, a Munich lawyer. The Frank family managed to emigrate to New York in April 1940, including their two sons (see the Frank article for more).

During two visits to Munich, Betty stayed at Pension Daser at Martiusstrasse 8—first from October 9–13, 1939, and again from February 17 to March 18, 1940. At that time, Rosa Rachel and Dr. Julius Frank, along with his mother Pauline Frank, were living in the apartment of Clarissa Haimann at that address.

Betty most likely coordinated her own emigration to Argentina and supported the Franks‘ emigration to the USA during this uncertain time. She might also have visited for the last her relatives in Munich. In November 1940, Betty Schwarzhaupt finally escaped, traveling via Madrid and Bilbao and then by ship across the Atlantic to Argentina, joining her son Heiner’s family.
She died in Beccar, Argentina, on June 22, 1951.

The next generations

Heiner´s daughter Eva, married Rodriguez, remained, like her father, „faithful“ to the German language. Eva was an opera singer, and at the same time she worked as an assistant director and lecturer in German language and German phonetics at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires from 1960 to 1987. In 1982, she was hired as a professor of German language and phonetics at the private university Universidad del Museo Social Argentino. From 1988 on she was a lecturer at the Universidad Católica de Buenos.

According to her, the foundation for this passion for music and her career was laid by her grandmother Betty, of whom she said: „Grandmother was my guardian angel, the best person in the world.“ Eva Rodriguez was 76 years old when she died in Buenos Aires in 2003.

Betty´s granddaughter Irma (born in 1931, another daughter of Heiner) currently lives in New York (as of 2025), and Claudia Gross, Betty’s great-granddaughter, lives in Philadelphia, USA.

IHK Regensburg, Gedenkbuch Münchner Juden, Genis, Hausbuch Martiusstrasse 8 (Münchner Stadtarchiv)

Rosa Bechhöfer was born on July 7, 1898, in Bechhofen. Her parents were Gabriel Bechhöfer and Sarah (Ursula), née Liebenstein. They resided in Bechhofen.

Rosa Bechhöfer had twelve siblings, who were born between 1883 and 1894. She grew up as the second youngest of Gabriel and Sarah´s the thirteen children. Rosa and five of her sisters did not survive the Shoah. One of her brothers, Isaak, born on February 3, 1892, in Bechhofen, emigrated to the USA and died in New York on July 31, 1974.

Following the early death of her parents (her father died on May 16, 1905, in Bechhofen), Rosa and her younger sister Betty were placed in the Fürth orphanage when Rosa was six years old. There, Rosa later worked as a saleswoman in the shoe shop owned by her sister Frieda Behr.

On September 6, 1935, Rosa moved from Fürth to Munich. Starting from February 1935, she was employed as a domestic servant by the Kreschower family, who soon emigrated to the USA. She then worked for the Levinger family.

Shortly before the birth of her daughters, Rosa atttempted to emigrate to the USA. The father of her twin daughters was Otto Hald, a non-Jewish man who left Munich before their birth. The twins, Susi and Lotte, were born on May 17, 1936, in Munich. They were placed in the Antonienstrasse children’s home.

Rosa Bechhöfer and Alice Bendix, the head of the children´s home, ensured that both girls were able to leave Germany on the Kindertransport to England in May 1939. Although Rosa was still living in Munich, the girls were adopted by the couple Frederick and Audrey Legge. Their Jewish origins were concealed from them. Frederick Legge, a Baptist Reverend in Cardiff, had the girls baptized. Lotte became Eunice Mary, and Susi became Grace Elizabeth. Lotte later died young from a brain tumor. Susi became a victim of sexual abuse by her adoptive father. In December 1966, she married Alan Stocken, and in the following year their son Frederick was born.

In 1996 her book „Rosa’s Child. The True Story of One Woman’s Quest for a Lost Mother and a Vanished Past“, which she wrote with Jeremy Josephs, was published. In 2016, her second book was published with the title „Rosa“. Susi’s story was used by W. G. Sebald in his novel „Austerlitz“.

After working for the Levinger family Rosa was employed as a domestic servant for the Bacher family on Leopoldstrasse. During the Nazi years, Rosa was repeatedly forced to move, including to Martiusstrasse 8, where she shared the apartment of Charlotte Perutz with several others from March 21 to March 28, 1941. On April 7, 1941, she was relocated to Leopoldstrasse 52a, one of the so called “Jewish houses”. On October 17, 1941, she was sent to the „Jewish settlement“ at Knorrstrasse 148. During this time, Rosa was forced to work at the Flachsröste flax roasting plant) in Lohhof. Her name was listed among the 343 Munich Jews scheduled for deportation to Piaski in November 1941. Due to her breast cancer, Rosa received a deferral and on November 1, 1941, she was admitted to the „Home for Jews“ at Clemens-August-Strasse 9. She underwent surgery at the Israelite Hospital at Hermann-Schmid-Strasse 9 (about Jewish houses, Mass quarters for Jews und the Lohhof flax roastery see article “old peoples´s homes …). On April 1, 1942, Rosa was transferred back to Knorrstrasse 148 but, just a week later, she was returned to Clemens-August-Strasse 9.

On March 1, 1943, the facility at Clemens-August-Strasse was dissolved, and all residents were deported to Auschwitz. Rosa Bechhöfer arrived there on March 13, 1943, and was murdered in the extermination camp.

According to the city address book, Else Wolbach, who had lived as a private citizen with her sister Maria at Martiusstrasse 8 since October 1, 1933, also used her apartment on the 1st floor as a boarding house from the mid-1930s. Emilie Rescher lived there for some time. Else Wolbach died in 1944, Maria left the house at Martiusstrasse 8 in 1946.

Boarding houses played an important role in the so-called „Aryanization of houses and apartments“ and the ghettoization of Munich’s Jews. With the „Law on Tenancies with Jews“ of April 30, 1939, Jews were excluded from legal tenant protection. Jews could now be expelled from their homes or Jewish subtenants could be forcibly assigned to them. The „Aryanization office“ located at the Gauleitung was given the task of carrying out the de-renting and the admission to new accommodation. In addition to boarding houses, hostels, old people’s homes and hospitals apartments of Jewish tenants were eligible too. These apartments could either belong to non-Jewish landlords, or could be in houses owned by Jews. The latter, so-called „Jewish houses“, were initially deliberately exempted from expropriation to use them to house Jewish tenants who had been thrown out of their own apartments. Often, they were forced to change their accommodation every few months or weeks.

In addition to the exploitation of the vacant apartments, the goal was to ghettoize Munich’s Jews and herd them together in confined spaces. Two people were considered the minimum occupancy for a room. By the end of 1941, the practice of moving Jewish tenants and owners out of their apartments had as result that the Jewish population of Munich was crammed together in a few overcrowded „Jewish houses“, apartments and other accommodations such as boarding houses.

They were e.g. housed in the Daser boarding house, in the Pension Wolbach and in the apartments of Clarissa Haimann and Charlotte Perutz at Martiusstrasse 8.

The Martiusstrasse was designed around 1885 as a connecting road between Leopoldstrasse, which was still called Schwabinger Landstrasse at the time, and Königinstrasse. It was not however actually built until 1906 and 1907 in the western section up to the former Kaulbachplatz, today Kisskaltplatz. As the eastern end of the axis Elisabeth- and Franz-Joseph-Strasse, Martiusstrasse also became the preferred area for stately apartment buildings in Schwabing. Anton Hatzl, architect and house owner at the same time, had a closed row of four buildings (No. 1, 3, 5, 7) built on the north side and another building (No. 4) on the south side opposite. This was supplemented by two similarly designed houses (No. 6, 8) by the architect Franz Popp. The client was the Munich master locksmith, building contractor, real estate speculator, shareholder and real estate owner Friedrich Trump (1857-1931). The entrepreneur, who came from Treuchtlingen, had several magnificent buildings with luxurious rental apartments built in the Art Nouveau style by such well-known architects as Max Langheinrich, Martin Wintergerst and Franz Popp in the then quite new Munich district of Schwabing (in Schelling-, Friedrich-, Franz-Joseph- and Ainmiller-Strasse). In 1906, the newspaper Tölzer Kurier praised „the large new apartment buildings of the master builder Friedrich Trump in Munich, which are constructed with modern technology, such as electrically operated elevators that can transport 35,000 bricks and a corresponding quantity of mortar every day.“ Since it was built, Martiusstrasse 8 has lost its elaborate façade design, when war damage was repaired.

The first owner was presumably Dr. Wilhelm Sohler, who originally came from Milan. He had studied in Freiburg and Munich and worked as a doctor and medical officer in Munich. After that, the merchant and shipowner Louis (Ludwig) von Kannengießer took over the house, probably in the year 1916. He came from Essen (born on April 17, 1852) and owned a Bergbau- und Schifffahrt AG in Mühlheim. During the First World War, he came to Munich, where he died on October 30, 1919. His heirs took over the house.

At the beginning of the 1920s, Ernst Walter Stauffer became the owner of the property. Ernst Walter Stauffer was born on January 7, 1887 in Sesto Cremonese, Italy, to Swiss parents. He was an Italian-Swiss entrepreneur and patron of the arts. In 1912, he took over parts of his father’s cheese dairy business and built a multi-storey production facility and a very large cheese cellar in Cremona. Cheese was soon produced there on an industrial scale and sold throughout Italy through the distribution network established by his uncle. Having become wealthy through his enterprises, he bought a lot of real estate not only in Italy, but also in Switzerland. He also owned the house at Martiusstrasse 8 from the early 1920s, probably until his death. Stauffer died on 26 February 1974 during a stay in Bern. The bachelor Stauffer bequeathed his entire fortune of 100 billion lire (equivalent to around 50 million Swiss francs in 2023) to his foundation „Centro di Musicologia Walter Stauffer“. At some point the insurance company Munich Re bought the building. Since then, Martiusstrasse 8 has been an administrative building of Munich Re.

Among the first tenants at Martiusstrasse 8 were Dr. Otto and Charlotte Perutz, who moved in on January 1, 1908, as well as Frieda and Julius Schweisheimer, who lived at Martiusstraße 8 from April 9, 1907. Their daughter Ruth was born there in 1908, her sister Dora in 1911. Frieda Schweisheimer’s mother, Ida Schönthal, moved to Munich after the death of her husband in 1905 and lived at Martiusstraße 8 from April 5, 1907.

Julius Isaak Schweisheimer

Julius Schweisheimer was born in Ederheim, in the Nördlingen district. He moved to Munich in 1893. His brother Eugen had previously founded a banking house in Munich in 1885 with Simon Dispeker, a merchant and banker born on December 25, 1848, in Fürth, who died in Munich in 1911. When Julius arrived in Munich, he lived at Franz-Josef-Strasse 36 and replaced Simon Dispeker as a partner in the bank. Together with his brother Eugen, he ran the bank „E & J Schweisheimer“ on Theatinerstrasse for several years. Simon Dispeker’s widow, Bertha, briefly lived at Martiusstraße 8 in 1939 (see article Dispeker).

Around 1920, Julius became the director of Metallätzwerk AG, originally founded in 1886 as „Luppe & Heilbronner OHG“ by Otto Luppe and Milton Heilbronner at Äußere Wiener Strasse 102 (later at Irschenhauser Strasse 19). It was one of the leading firms in the German sign industry. Eugen and Julius were the sole shareholders: Eugen held 96.3% of the shares, and Julius 0.3%.

On May 4, 1935, both brothers sold their shares and ceased to be shareholders in the company. Julius also resigned from his position as director, and Eugen stepped down as chairman of the supervisory board. From 1935, Julius remained only an employee, and as of March 31, 1936, he was unemployed. The company was “Aryanized,” i.e., transferred to non-Jewish ownership, and renamed Dr. Fritz Leicher – Factory of Chemical Engravings. In 1952, the Munich production facility was dissolved, and operations moved to Scheidegg. Two years later, the company was taken over by the Bavarian Metal Sign Factory, owned by the Demmel and Holderried families.

On June 18, 1899, Julius married Frieda Schönthal in Fürth. Frieda had been born there on April 20, 1875. The couple initially lived at Leopoldstrasse 17½. From April 9, 1907, they lived in a rented apartment at Martiusstrasse 8/2. Frieda’s mother, Ida Schönthal (née Ullmann), born on April 25, 1850, in Fürth, also moved in with them on April 5, 1907, after the death of her husband, factory owner Philipp Schönthal.

Julius and Frieda had four children. Two died young: Fritz Walter on May 25, 1900, and Magda on June 10, 1901. Ruth was born on August 27, 1908, and Dora on November 8, 1911, both at Martiusstrasse 8.
Ida Schönthal, Frieda’s mother, died in Munich on February 28, 1935.

Ruth Kraemer (née Schweisheimer)

Ruth studied archaeology and art history in Munich, Berlin, and Paris, earning her doctorate in 1932 in Munich with a thesis on the sculptor Johann Georg Dirr. In her memoirs, she wrote:

„One day, a classmate from the Gymnasium invited me to attend a lecture with her on Egyptian art. That lecture ’sealed my fate‘.“

Shortly after earning her degree, Ruth worked as a trainee at the Staatliche Kunstbibliothek in Berlin but was dismissed in 1933 under the „Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service.“

Realizing early on that she would have to emigrate, Ruth began preparing for a new career.

„Everything changed, of course, when Hitler became German Chancellor on January 30, 1933. Since our future looked so bleak, we, the younger generation, knew we had to leave Germany as soon as possible.“

She studied photography with Siegfried Enkelmann at the Robertson Studio in Berlin:
„In order to prepare myself for the possibility that I might not be able to find a job in my profession, I signed up for a course in photography (…).“

In Berlin, Ruth met her future husband, law student Helmut Kraemer. In 1934, she left the studio and opened her own photography business for portrait, advertising, and architectural work in her parents’ apartment at Martiusstrasse 8. She operated it from August 2, 1934, to September 29, 1936.

She reached out to relatives in America for support with emigration and left from Le Havre to New York in 1936 aboard the S.S. Britannic. Initially, she lived with relatives Charlotte and Morris Weil. Like many émigré art historians, Ruth struggled with English at first, but her knowledge of Romance languages helped her adapt. Through a university friend, Helen Franck, she learned of an opportunity at the Pierpont Morgan Library, where she was eventually employed. This job allowed her to afford her own apartment, though her financial situation remained difficult.

In 1937, Helmut Kraemer also emigrated to the U.S.
„We were happily reunited and met almost daily to exchange experiences.“
They married in 1939, and Ruth (now calling herself Ruth Shearer Kraemer) left the Morgan Library to raise their children, Erika and Kenneth. She was granted American citizenship in 1940. Financial stability came only after Helmut passed the American bar exam. Once her children were older, Ruth resumed work at the Morgan Library, including in the Department of Prints and Drawings. She authored Drawings by Benjamin West and his son Raphael Lamar West, the catalog for a 1975 exhibition at the Morgan.

The Nazi persecution had cost Ruth her homeland and her father Julius. She turned her back on the German language.
“She only spoke German to her husband when she didn’t want her children to understand. She never taught them German. Though she traveled the world, she never returned to Germany. In fact, she was very outspoken about her belief that no one in the family who was forced to leave Germany should ever return.”
Ruth Shearer Kraemer died on September 27, 2005, in New York.

Dora Bustin (née Schweisheimer)

Dora, daughter of Frieda and Julius, married the businessman Ernst Bustin (born September 25, 1903, in Kochel). The couple emigrated to Buenos Aires on May 20, 1938, along with Ernst’s brother Franz Josef (born January 19, 1902). In 1939, Ernst (Ernesto) Bustin founded a machine tool factory in Buenos Aires, which still exists today. Unfortunately, little is known about the later lives of Dora and Ernst.

Final Years of Julius and Frieda Schweisheimer

Like many Jews, Julius and Frieda were forced to leave their home. In 1937, they moved to Franz-Josef-Straße 36, then to Leopoldstraße 52a/2, and on June 19, 1940, to the Pension Lieseke at Widenmayerstraße 6/4. Frieda died there on May 13, 1941. Julius’s sister, Hina Einstein, also lived there from June 20, 1940, until December 4, 1941.

Julius’s final address in Munich was the so-called „Jewish settlement“ in Milbertshofen at Knorrstraße 148, beginning December 4, 1942. Records show that he had 700 Reichsmarks in an account at Bayerische Vereinsbank, with 300 Reichsmarks in securities seized—his remaining assets.
On June 23, 1942, Julius was deported from Knorrstraße 148 to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, where he was murdered on November 23, 1942.

Other Family Members

His brother Eugen Engstle and his sister Hina Einstein were with him in the Theresienstadt concentration camp and were murdered in July and October of the same year. Frieda’s brother Leo Schönthal, born on August 15, 1877 in Fürth, was deported to Piaski in Poland on April 4, 1942 and murdered there.

Restitution Efforts

In 1946, Ruth Kraemer and Dora Bustin filed restitution claims with the American military administration from New York and Buenos Aires. In 1949, the claims were registered with the Bavarian State Office for Restitution. The respondent was Fritz Leicher, who had acquired the Metallätzwerk AG shares from the interim owner Immobilienbesitz AG and had run the company since 1938.

In August 1959, Ruth’s lawyer wrote:
„Since 1933, it had become clear that the fully legal main shareholders could no longer retain the company due to the daily intensifying boycott and exclusion of Jews from economic life… The only way out was Aryanization.“ Julius resigned, ostensibly due to age, and Kurt Griebel from Stockdorf became director.

Leicher claimed to have “cleansed the company of parasites and Jewish bankers” and saw his takeover as a “meritorious act of de-Judaization.” Ultimately, a settlement was reached, and Ruth, Dora, and Eugen’s son Waldemar withdrew their restitution claims.

Max Steinmeier was born on December 8, 1855 in Munich. His parents were Isaak Steinmeier, a wholesaler in Munich, and Emilie Steinmeier, née Neustätter. He completed a banking apprenticeship and after that he worked as a senior bank clerk in Munich. He married Clara Rosa Herzfelder, born on August 1, 1860 in Speyer, on August 21, 1891 in Munich. In 1941 Max Steinmeier was widowed.

The place and date of Clara Rosa’s death are not known. Her parents were Dr. med. Jacob Herzfelder, born in Speyer in 1818 and Helene Pflaum. Clara Rosa had three siblings: Dr. jurisprudence Felix Salomon Herzfelder, Privy Counsellor, born on 15 October 1863 in Speyer. He and his wife Emma managed to emigrate to Istanbul in November 1939. He died on October 3, 1944 in Haifa.

August Herrmann Herzfelder, banker and numismatist, co-owner of Bankhaus Neustätter in Munich, was born on 12 March, 1862 in Speyer. He managed to emigrate to Scotland in February 1940, where he died in 1950.

Her sister was Julie Johanna Neustätter, born in Speyer in 1858, who died in Munich in 1940.

Rosa Clara also had a half-brother, Moritz Pflaum, a son from Helene Pflaum’s first marriage.

Max and Clara Rosa had a son, Kurt Steinmeier, who was born in Stuttgart on February 22, 1895. Kurt was awarded a doctorate in law and lived in Munich until 9 March, 1936. He probably succeeded in emigrating.

At the age of 81, Max Steinmeier moved to Widenmayerstrasse 36 on January 23, 1936. After another move to Bauerstrasse 22 (to Rapp’s apartment, see article Heims), he had to move to the Haimann apartment on the ground floor of Martiusstrasse 8 on March 21, 1941 and a week later, on March 28, 1941, to Isabellastrasse 13. From September 15, 1941 he lived in the Israelite Hospital Herrmann-Schmidt-Strasse 5-9, where he died on October 31, 1941. Widenmayerstrasse 36 and Bauerstrasse 22 were among the houses where Jewish citizens were accommodated for shorter or longer periods.
He has a grave at the New Israelite Cemetery, Section 7, Row 12, Square 10.

Ida Silberschmidt was born on December 2, 1870, in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Kanton of Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Her father was Moses Moise Silberschmidt, who came from Niederwerrn near Schweinfurt and had emigrated to Switzerland. He settled in La Chaud-de-Fonds with his family and founded a watch factory there. In 1887, an anvil with a hammer was registered as the company’s trademark. Ida´s mother was Rosa Silberschmidt, née Gutmann. She had a brother, Prof. of Medicine William Silberschmidt (born January 17, 1869, La Chaux-de-Fonds), who died on April 8, 1947, in Zurich.

Ida Silberschmidt attended the Higher Girls‘ School. She lived in French-speaking Switzerland until her marriage. Her mother died at the age of 32 in La Chaud-de-Fonds, where she was buried at the Cimetière israélite des Eplatures. There is also the grave of her father, who died on May 24, 1890. On September 7, 1891 Ida married in Heidingsfeld the Privy Court Councellor Prof. Dr. jur. Wilhelm Silberschmidt, born July 18, 1862 in Würzburg.

Wilhelm Silberschmidt later worked as a supreme regional court councellor in Munich. From 1918, he had already been a private lecturer and was an honorary professor at the law faculty of the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. On 1 May 1919 he was appointed to the council of the Bavarian Supreme Court. He was chairman of the conference of the Association of Bavarian Jewish Communities for many years and was active in committees of the Jewish Community. After his appointment as Privy Councellor of Justice, he retired in the summer of 1928. After the beginning of the National Socialist era, he was banned from lecturing in May 1933 and in June of the same year his teaching license was revoked.

The couple had five children. Their son Friedrich Maximilian died 19 August 1897 at the age of two months in Aschaffenburg. Their son Benno Daniel, born on April 3, 1899 in Aschaffenburg, was awarded a doctorate in law and was appointed district judge in Ingolstadt. He was dismissed from the civil service in 1935 and emigrated to Sao Paulo in November 1939. He returned to Germany in 1954 and died in Munich April 14, 1988. Their son Dr. phil. Karl, biologist, born August 31,1903 in Aschaffenburg, emigrated to Sao Paulo in November 1936 and remained there until his death on April 2, 1974.

Ida’s and Wilhelm’s daughter Rosa was born December 18, 1892 in Nuremberg. She had a doctorate in teaching and taught at the Sophienschule in Würzburg. In 1933 she was dismissed from teaching and moved the same year to Munich to live with her parents. Until 1941 she taught at the Israelite elementary school in Munich.

Ida and Wilhelm’s son Hans Silberschmidt, lawyer, born March 28, 1895 in Nuremberg, attended the Humanistic Gymnasium there. He remained unmarried.

Ida and Wilhelm moved to Munich with Hans on January 1, 1916 and moved into an apartment in Isabellastrasse 22/II.

Hans passed the state examination in law in Munich. From 1915 to 1918 he took part in the First World War as a front-line fighter. His father had a law firm in the same house in Isabellastrasse 22/I, which Hans joined as a partner. On January 24, 1930, he was rewarded his doctorate in law. Hans Silberschmidt was an expert on insurance issues. He spoke several languages fluently: French, English, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian and Scandinavian languages. With the beginning of the Nazi regime, living conditions changed dramatically. His license was revoked but he continued to work as a „consultant“ until February 1939.
In the beginning of 1937 Ida, Wilhelm and Rosa moved to Bauerstrasse 26. Hans followed them on July 14, 1937. He lived on the ground floor and his parents and Rosa on the first floor. On March 6, 1939, Wilhelm Silberschmidt died in Munich after a long illness. Ida Silberschmidt and her daughter then probably moved in with Ida´s son Hans.

On April 16, 1940, mother, daughter Rosa and son Hans were sent to Martiusstrasse 8/0 by the Nazi authorities. They had to move again to Bauerstrasse 26 on September 15, 1941 and shortly afterwards to Jakob-Klar-Strasse 1; on December 1, 1941 they were forced to move again to Herzog-Rudolf-Strasse 1.

On March 7, 1942, Rosa was sent to the Knorrstrasse barracks camp. Hans Silberschmidt was deported from Munich on April 4, 1942, together with his sister Rosa to the Piaski transit ghetto near Lublin, where they were murdered by the SS there or in the Bełżec or Sobibór extermination camps. Their mother Ida was deported from Munich to the Theresienstadt concentration camp on July 23,1942 and murdered there on April 7, 1943.

A stumbling block has been laid for Dr. Rosa Silberschmidt in Würzburg.

Max Moses Lieber was born on 20 November 1883 in Demycze, the district of Zabłotów, in Galicia, which at that time belonged to Austria-Hungary. His parents were the merchant Chaim Lieber and Jetty, née Thau.
On August 10, 1910, he married Sima Ruchel Fröhlich in Kosów, not far from Zabłotów. Sima was born in the neighbouring village of Kosów Stary November 7, 1886.

Sometime before the wedding, Moses had moved from Kosów to Berlin, probably to live with his brother Jützig Meier, who had emigrated earlier. To facilitate the integration of the family in Berlin, they took on the names Max and Sabine and gave the name Herta to their daughter, who was born on July 18, 1910. Their son Alfred was born July 25, 1911, and their daughter Franziska, known as Fanny, on February 11, 1913. The family then moved to Munich, where Max Lieber was registered from January 1, 1913.
In Munich, Max Lieber had become a very successful and wealthy businessman and was an assessor of the synagogue associations Linath Hazedek and Agudas Achim.

In 1913 he had taken over the company Heinrich Georg, Möbelherstellung, which manufactured furniture in Sendling at Welserstrasse 20, and he ran at the same time a furniture shop at Lindwurmstrasse 5/I-III. From 1920 to 1924, the Munich enterprises were a branch of the Lieber brothers´ company with the main office in Berlin. The factory produced all kinds of household furniture, but also equipped shops and restaurants, e.g. in 1925 the then well-known Cafe Orlando di Lasso. Max also ran the Max Lieber company in the same building, a retail store with men’s, women’s and children’s clothing and shoes. In August 1938, about 60 workers and 10 employees were employed by the company. Most of them worked in the factory.

Max Lieber was also the owner of the commercial building in Lindwurmstrasse, which he acquired in 1919. To the plot of land also belonged the adjacent Fliegenstrasse 8. He also owned the factory building at Welserstrasse 20, which he bought in 1928, as well as the renthouses at Adelheidstrasse 15 and 35 and Agnesstrasse 47, and a house at Höchlstraße 2.

Probably since the end of the 1920s, the Lieber family lived in their house at Adelheidstrasse 15 / 2. There, a tenant harassed them so dreadfully, that they moved out of her own house on September 1, 1934, „into a rented apartment at Martiusstrasse 6“. „This apartment was as spacious as their own apartment at Adelheidstrasse. It consisted of 5 rooms, a hallway and adjoining rooms. The family of five and a maid lived there. „The two daughters lived in one room, the son in another, the parents had a bedroom, and there was also a dining room and a master´s room. The hallway was furnished as a living room. It was a well-furnished stately apartment.“

The Lieber couple had received German citizenship in the 1920s but were then expatriated by the National Socialists according to a law dating from July 14, 1933, and thus became stateless. Due to the „Law on the Revocation of Naturalizations and the Revocation of German Citizenship“, Jews from Eastern Europe, so-called „Eastern Jews“, were particularly affected by expatriation.

Immediately after the seizure of power, Max Lieber was exposed to National Socialist terror and was „arrested and seriously injured on the night of the revolution in March 1933“. At the same time, his passport had been taken from him. In the night of March 9 to 10, his two valuable cars, a Lincoln limousine and an Auburn convertible, were expropriated by the Gestapo without compensation. According to other sources, the cabriolet was confiscated by an SA organization, which threatened that Max Lieber’s situation in the Stadelheim prison would deteriorate if he wouldn´t accept this. As a result of these events, Max Lieber was „under pressure and was therefore no longer free in his actions”, and “finally, recommended by the Bankhaus Hardy, he hired Dr. Rottner in order to be able to negotiate with the authorities and other institutions on his behalf.“

According to other sources, Otto Rottner had been appointed manager of the Georg company in 1933 during the process of the expatriation of Max Lieber by the German Labor Front (DAF). He was responsible for all business transactions and was supposed to initiate the planned „Aryanization“, i.e. the displacing of Max Lieber from the company. Rottner was a former party comrade and participant in the march to the Feldherrnhalle on November 9, 1923.

After the seizure of power by the Nazi´s, business initially continued undisturbed. But more losses in the retail business resulted, for example,”from the non-Aryan status regarding outstanding payments. From 1933 onwards, it was no longer possible to carry out actions even against the most malicious debtors.“ When claims for compensation were filed in 1948, the losses from these unpaid bills amounted to 30,000 RM.

Since the Nazi authorities increased their pressure on Max Lieber to give up his business, sales negotiations had been conducted in 1937 with a long-time employee of the company, Karoline Grill. The transaction failed because the Chamber of Industry and Commerce argued, that she held an important position in the company and maintained family relations with Max Lieber. The Chamber of Industry and Commerce remarked: „Since 1933, such business relations are against the party´s principles!“ According to her own testimony in 1952, Mrs. Grill had been working in Mr. Lieber’s business since „1920 and was the confidante of the Lieber family.“ In the last years she was the managing director of the company.

In the autumn of 1938, Rottner and the head of the Augsburg branch of the „Heinrich Georg“ company, Josef Eder, took over the furniture and clothing business. Apparently, however, this was a sham transaction with the cooperation of Rottner, so that Karoline Grill could remain in her position to take over the company, as Max Lieber had intended.

With the pogrom night on November 9, the pressure intensified and the Lieber family’s scope for action was significantly restricted.

On November 9, 1938, fourteen large shop windows were smashed at the furniture store in Lindwurmstrasse, „and 95% of the furniture warehouse in the store was severely damaged. The damaged furniture had to be repaired if possible – and sold below price.“ In total, this resulted in a damage of approx. 16,500 RM. After the November pogrom, Max Lieber had to pay 39,600 RM as a so-called „Jewish property levy“. According to the text of the law, this arbitrary levy, which, like others, had the intention to completely rob the Jews, had been introduced by the Nazi state as an „atonement“ for „the hostile attitude of Jewry towards the German people“.

In the meantime, the increasing pressure led to the fact that all houses except the commercial buildings on Lindwurmstrasse had to be sold below their standard value in 1937 and 1938.

After the pogrom night, Rottner was also appointed by the DAF as liquidator and trustee. In this capacity, he was to liquidate the manufacturing company that had yet not been taken over. On December 5, 1938, Alfred Lieber was forced to unconditionally hand over the power of attorney to Rottner. From then on, Max Lieber lived on allocations from the liquidator, i.e. advance payments derived from a blocked account. Such accounts were set up for Jews and they were not allowed to dispose of the money freely. The Lieber family was now dependent on payings from the liquidator and on income from house and landownership.

The original intention to liquidate the furniture factory was abandoned, as the company J. Herrmann, which manufactured shop furnishing, was now interested in the takeover. In the takeover application, the plant manager Dahlke emphasized that both he and the three shareholders of the company were party members. In a further letter in January 1939 addressed to the responsible Chamber of Industry and Commerce, Dahlke asked for an early „Aryanization“ so that he would be able to carry out army orders and complained, that earlier negotiations on the purchase of the factory had failed due to „excessive“ demands from the „Jewish part“. Presumably, Lieber wanted to sell at a realistic price at the time. This was no longer possible after the pogrom night, and the forced sale took place on March 10, 1939, at a price of 105,000 RM. This corresponded to about half of the actual value. The proceeds came into a blocked account that Max Lieber could not dispose of and from which he never received a payout. Dahlke subsequently took over several other Jewish businesses through „Aryanization“ and merged all the companies into Industria Holzverarbeitungs-GmbH. At this point, Rottner was also no longer completely free in his decisions, because DAF had repeatedly told him that if the sale to an “Aryan” owner was not completed in the shortest possible time, DAF would remove him as operator. According to a witness, Rottner, after the war, explained this pressure by saying that Dahlke only received the business at an extremely low price because he compensated to the real price through donations to the DAF and other party offices. The pressure exerted by the DAF during this Aryanization is also illustrated by an incident in the summer of 1938. When Alfred Lieber, Max’s son, refused to guide a prospective buyer sent by DAF through the factory, the latter turned to Rottner and threatened to take Alfred Lieber to Dachau if he ever again would interfere in sales negotiations.

The two daughters Herta and Franziska and their son Alfred Lieber managed to emigrate to Palestine together in the spring of 1939, when the family still lived at Martiustrasse 6. „At that time, everything they wanted to take with them had to be specified. They were allowed to take clothes, linen, dishes and the like with them.“ Alfred Lieber had a Persian carpet in his room, before he „emigrated, he asked the Gestapo to be allowed to take the carpet with him. The Gestapo replied: ‚The carpet is valuable ’state property‘ that must not be taken abroad, and it must therefore be ’secured'“.

The possibility for this expropriation was a decree issued by the Reich Ministry of Economics to the Chief Finance Presidents of May 13, 1938. The essence of this decree was, that all Jewish emigrants were accused of capital flight and therefore their valuable objects were declared as „public property“ and confiscated. A further step towards total deprivation of rights was a decree of the Reich Security Main Office of October 19, 1939, according to which Jews had to hand over their radios to the Reich without compensation. At the end of 1939, a valuable radio set was confiscated from the Lieber family by the Gestapo.

By January 20, 1941, the Lieber couple was expelled from their apartment at Martiustrasse 6 and sent first to the Haimann family’s apartment at Martiusstrasse 8 and then on September 17, 1941 to Schillerstrasse 14 / 1 to live there with Justizrat Esslinger. „When the apartment in Martiustrasse had to be given up,“ Karoline Grill helped to bring „some of the furniture, crockery, etc. to the shop at Lindwurmstrasse 5, otherwise the Gestapo would have taken it away. The people from the shop helped.“ The „first-class things“ brought to Lindwurmstrasse were later „all burned in an air raid“. The rest of the furniture, „such as the parents‘ bedroom and the large dining room, I took into custody and kept it in an extra storage facility of the furniture store.“ Alfred Lieber sold this furniture in 1951 during a stay in Munich.

In Schillerstrasse, the Lieber couple was left with a room of about 25 square meters, into which „the bedroom of the two daughters, one tea table, one carpet, one lamp, chairs, dishes, all the beds“ were brought with the help of Karoline Grill.

Max Lieber and his wife Sabine were deported from Schillerstrasse to Kaunas on November 20, 1941, in the first transport of Munich Jews and they were murdered by the SS on November 25, 1941, during the mass shootings in Kaunas.

Karoline Grill witnessed in 1952: „On November 20,1941 the Lieber couple left. At the time, it was said that everything would be sealed and secured. But the Liebers´ didn’t get back any of their belongings.“ „The Lieber family was allowed to take only 30 kg of luggage with them when they left. Valuable items of clothing were left behind in the wardrobe, including tailor-made suits belonging to Mr. Lieber.“

The room, where the Lieber couple stayed in Schillerstrasse, was cleared by a moving company on December 17, 1941, ordered by the so-called „Aryanization Office“. The furniture was being confiscated. The Nazi state now also confiscated the remaining assets of whatever was left of their real estate and consigned it for „exploitation“. The Oberfinanzdirektion registered its interest in the commercial buildings in Lindwurmstrasse and Fliegenstrasse besides other prospective buyers. They wanted to take over the property to locate the Munich-Land tax office here. These considerations became obsolete after the complete destruction of the commercial buildings in Lindwurmstrasse and Fliegenstrasse in an air raid on December 17, 1944.

As a result of the reparation proceedings, the children Alfred, Herta and Franziska, who lived at that time in Israel, were given back all their real estate and received compensation for the Aryanization of the furniture factory, for confiscated assets and for parts of the confiscated furniture.