Abschlussveranstaltung
am 20. November 2025 um 19 Uhr
in der St. Ursula Kirche, Kaiserplatz 1, 80803 München

mit:

Wolfram P. Kastner (Künstler und Initiator) und Dr. Anton Steiner
Stadträtin Mona Fuchs in Vertretung des Oberbürgermeisters
Lesung: Ursula Binsack Gedichte von Ilse Weber
Musik: Martin Schwingshandl, Klavier und Johanna Keupp-Kosbahn, Flöte 

Zur Erinnerung an ehemalige jüdische Nachbarn in Schwabing haben Nachbarn, Angehörige,
engagierte Bürgerinnen und Bürger in den letzten Monaten recherchiert, Texte geschrieben,
Koffer gesammelt und gestaltet, diskutiert und daran mitgewirkt,
dass dieses Gedenkprojekt im öffentlichen Raum verwirklicht werden konnte.

Damit werden Menschen erinnert und gewürdigt, die in dieser Stadt vor aller Augen
und mit großer Zustimmung terrorisiert, beraubt, vertrieben und ermordet wurden.
Namen, Gesichter, Lebensgeschichten und die örtliche Nähe
verbinden Personen, Geschichte und Gegenwart.

Weiße Koffer und Informationstafeln standen seit Juni 2025 bis heute
vor den Wohnhäusern Elisabethstraße 30, Franz-Joseph-Straße 15, Herzogstraße 65,
Hohenzollernstraße 25, Martiusstraße 8 und Römerstraße 21,
ab heute vor und in der Ursulakirche am Kaiserplatz 1
und in der Mittelschule an der Elisabeth-Kohn-Straße.

Wir wenden uns gegen alle Formen von Ausgrenzung, Rassismus und Terror gegen Menschen
in dieser Stadt und überall – in Gegenwart und Zukunft.

Schirmherrschaft: Oberbürgermeister Dieter Reiter und
Dr. h.c. Charlotte Knobloch, Präsidentin der IKG München/Obb.

Das Projekt wurde gefördert von:
Landeshauptstadt München, Bezirksausschuss 4, Bezirksausschuss 12, Kulturreferat,
Munich Re, Firma Wurmböck GmbH, Brillux GmbH und privaten Sponsoren

Kontakt: 089-157 32 19 oder w.kastner@ikufo.de

Between 1905 and 1945, Munich saw significant changes in the establishment and function of institutions for the care, accommodation, and confinement of its Jewish population under the pressures of Nazi policy. The era encompassed a transition from social care for the elderly and infirm to systems of forced labor, ghettoization, and mass deportation.

Old People’s Homes and Dormitories

• Pre-Nazi Era: Old people’s homes (Altenheime) and other forms of communal housing traditionally provided care for elderly Jews, offering a peaceful environment during their later years.
• Nazi Era Changes: Following the rise of the Nazi regime, these institutions were systematically repurposed. Jewish residents were often evicted from mainstream elder care and dormitories, forced instead into overcrowded accommodations known as „Jewish houses“ (Judenhäuser).
• Forced Congregation: Facilities such as the „Home for Jews at Berg am Laim“ (Heimanlage für Juden) in the former convent of the Sisters of Mercy on Clemens-August-Straße 9 (now Sankt-Michael-Straße 16) became mass accommodations, with over 300 people forced to live in cramped quarters.
• Mechanism of Persecution: These changes were enforced through the abolition of tenant protections for Jews, culminating in their systematic isolation, loss of privacy, and eventual transfer to camps or deportation.

Flachsröste Lohhof

• Establishment: The Flachsröste Lohhof GmbH was constructed in 1935 as a flax processing plant.
• Role in Forced Labor: From June 1941 to autumn 1942, this site operated as a forced labor camp mainly for Jewish women and girls, particularly from Munich and a group of Polish Jews from the Łódź Ghetto.
• Work Conditions: These women endured grueling labor in the fields and factories, producing flax fibers essential for the Wehrmacht and marine equipment. Living conditions were dire, with up to 90 women interned in a single barrack, while others commuted daily from Munich.
• Part of the Camp System: Lohhof, along with sites like Milbertshofen and Berg am Laim, formed a network of camps used by the Aryanization Office to exploit, oppress, and ultimately concentrate Munich’s Jewish population before deportation.

The Jewish Hospital in Munich

• Before 1945: During the Nazi era, Jewish medical infrastructure was decimated; most hospitals were destroyed or repurposed, and only a fraction of Jewish physicians survived the war.
• Postwar Reestablishment: Immediately after WWII, as Jewish survivors avoided German doctors, Jewish self-governing bodies established a medical infrastructure. In the spring of 1946, a hospital for the persecuted was opened at the Max-Josef-Stift Gymnasium in Bogenhausen, Munich, under the management of UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration).
• Focus on Survivors: By April 1949, under Dr. Moses Osterweil, the hospital dedicated itself entirely to caring for surviving Jews. The institution remained active until autumn 1951, providing vital assistance during the initial phase of postwar recovery.

The Milbertshofen „Judensiedlung“ Barrack Camp

• Purpose: The barrack camp at Knorrstraße 148 in Milbertshofen was the largest camp for Jews in Munich. It acted as both communal housing and a collection point for deportation operations.
• Conditions: Resident Jews endured basic plank beds and extreme overcrowding, with little to no privacy. The camp could house up to 650 people and briefly held up to 1,200 during mass deportations.
• Closure: Following repeated deportations and abuse, the camp closed in August 1942, with remaining inmates transferred to Berg am Laim. The site was subsequently acquired by BMW for use by forced laborers.

Table: Key Institutions, 1905–1945

The „Heimanlage Berg am Laim“, the Lohhof flax roastery, the „Judensiedlung Milbertshofen“ and the “Judenhäuser” were part of a system set up by the „Aryanization Office“ located at the Gauleitung in Munich for the exclusion, discrimination and plundering of Munich’s Jews. It gave notice of termination of their apartments and assigned them a place in one of the camps or in one of Munich’s „Jewish houses“. From the end of 1938 onwards, the Jewish population was systematically expelled from their apartments or houses to get space for „Aryan“ interested parties or deserving party members. Within just one year, a large part of Munich’s Jewish population was ghettoized with the help of the camp in Milbertshofen, the „Home for Jews“ in Berg am Laim, and other communal accommodations and so-called „Jewish houses“. In Munich this program started even earlier, before the German law came into effect that deprived Jewish tenants of their Rights.

The forced accommodations served to realize the program of the „Jew-free city“. From the end of 1941, the deportations to the death camps that then began were carried out from these places.

„Home for Jews Berg am Laim” (former Convent of the religious Order of the Sisters of Mercy): a mass accommodation for Jewish people at Clemens-August-Strasse 9

The deprivation of rights of the Jewish population also included the abolition of tenant protection. Already during the pogrom of November 1938, the violation of privacy with the burglary of houses and apartments had been an essential element of the nationwide terror. The Law on Tenancies with Jews of April 30, 1939, made it possible for non-Jewish owners to get rid of their Jewish tenants without complying with the legal protection against dismissal, since „Aryans“ could not be expected to live under the same roof with Jews. As a result, the housing situation for Jewish people who were crammed into so-called „Jewish houses“ became increasingly oppressed.

The House of the Sisters of Mercy in Bavaria, converted from 1941 to 1943 into the ‚Home for Jews Berg am Laim‘, photo from the 1960s
(Archive of the Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy of St. Vincent de Paul, Motherhouse Munich)

The „Home for Jews“ in the convent of the Sisters of Mercy, then Clemens-August-Strasse 9, today Sankt-Michael-Strasse 16, served as a mass accommodation for over 300 people who had to live on three floors in cramped conditions. Along with the „Judensiedlung Milbertshofen“ and the „Flachsröste Lohhof“, it was part of a camp system for Munich’s Jews. At the same time, their concentration in the smallest of spaces enabled the Gestapo to act quickly during the deportations.

In addition to the extraordinarily cramped living situation, the use of forced labor made people’s lives more difficult. The ‚Closed Labor Assignment‘ introduced for Jewish men in 1938 was successively extended to women and older people. Hard, dirty work that often had to be done without tools and protection, long working hours and the prohibition of using public transport to and from work tormented the people just as much as the uncertainty of their own fate in the face of the constant deportations from autumn 1941 onwards. The fear of deportation drove many to suicide. From April 1942, Else Berend-Rosenfeld had originally been the director of the facility. After her escape, Curt Mezger ran the camp until its closure. Of the deportees, only a few people survived. On March 1, 1943, the ‚Heimanlage‘ was completely shut down and the remaining residents were deported to Auschwitz. The memorial at Sankt-Michael-Strasse 16 commemorates the life and death of the residents.

Written by Edith Raim, nsdoku München

Barracks camp Knorrstrasse 148 (Jewish settlement Milbertshofen) Collection point for Munich Jews before their deportation

The barracks camp in Knorrstrasse was euphemistically called the „Jewish settlement“ by the prosecuting authorities. It was built at Knorrstrasse 148 in the Milbertshofen district od Munich in the spring of 1941 on the initiative of the so-called „Aryanization Office“ of the Gauleiter and in close coordination with the city administration and the Gestapo. It was in an industrial area in the Milbertshofen district and was the largest ghetto for Jews in Munich. Conscripted Jewish workers had to build the camp without receiving any pay for it. The Munich city administration took over the construction management. The construction was carried out by the Hinteregger company. The construction costs were payed in advance by the city and epaid by the „Aryanization Office“ within a year. For this the „Aryanization Office“ demanded a daily housing fee from the Jewish Community for each camp inmate and extorted „voluntary donations for the construction of the camp“ from individual Jewish persons. These taxes extorted from the Jews amounted to many times the actual construction costs. The barracks camp, built on an area of more than 14,000 square meters, offered space for ca 1,100 people (but was repeatedly overcrowded). No one was allowed to leave the camp without permission. The original purpose of the „Milbertshofen Jewish Settlement“, as the camp was officially called, was the ghettoization of Munich’s Jews.

Arrival of new occupants in November 1941

From the end of 1941, the strictly enclosed barracks camp served as a collection point for the deportations that were now beginning. The first transport left Munich in November 1941 from the nearby Milbertshofen freight station. The approximately 1,000 men, women and children of that transport were murdered by the SS on November 25, 1941 in Kaunas, Lithuania. The second transport from Munich to the Piaski transit ghetto near Lublin on April 4, 1942 was also handled via the Milbertshofen camp. More than half of the 776 deportees came from the Swabian region and had been transferred to Milbertshofen a few days before the transport. In the three months from June to August 1942, the National Socialists deported a further 1,200 Jews from Munich and Swabia to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in 24 transports of 50 people each. These transports were also assembled in the barracks camp at Knorrstrasse 148. The Gestapo picked up the persons concerned in buses and furniture vans and took them to the main railway station or the freight station in Laim, where they were sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in a third-class passenger car attached to a regular train. Upon their arrival at the Milbertshofen barracks camp, the people destined for deportation were subjected to a body search. They had been allowed to take 50 kg of luggage with them, and an additional 50 Reichsmarks had to be paid as „travel expenses“ to the death camps. Gestapo officers, employees of the „Aryanization Office“ and the tax administration searched the luggage they had brought with them to prevent people from taking valuables, jewelry, cameras and money. Numerous items were confiscated or stolen. After the Jewish community was almost completely wiped out by emigration and deportation in August 1942, the barracks camp was dissolved. After that the Bayerische Motorenwerke (BMW) used it as accommodation for foreign forced laborers.

After 1945, refugees were housed here until the end of the 1950s. The Munich municipal housing office used in later years remains of the camp to accommodate homeless people. There are no structural remains of the camp area today. On Troppauer Straße, a sculpture in the shape of a large menorah commemorates the function of the place as a gathering and transit point for Jews as well as the fate of its inmates.

Flachsröste Lohhof

Flachsröste Lohhof 1937

Flachsröste Lohhof GmbH was established in the autumn of 1935. Here, flax was processed into natural fibres that were used to make linen. The work in the factory and in the field in the blazing sun was notorious. During the Second World War, the Lohhof flax roasting company was considered an important company for the war effort and was given preferential treatment in the allocation of workers. In 1942 alone, according to the specifications of the Reich Economic Office, at least 800 tons of finished fiber had to be produced in flax roasting. This was equivalent to processing 1,000 railway wagons loaded with flax. In Lohhof, especially women were used for forced labor. They were mainly Jewish women from Munich and a group of about 68 Polish Jewish women from the Łódź ghetto. They had to work either for very little money or for „board and lodging“. In July 1941, for example, a German Jewish woman earned only 11.70 RM a week for a 10-hour working day. A total of about 300 mainly young Jewish women were employed in Lohhof, who were under the supervision of the German foremen. The work performance was closely monitored by the „Aryanization Office“. The Lohhof flax roasting company was thus one of the biggest Munich employers that employed Jewish forced laborers. There was a camp barrack on the factory grounds in which up to 90 of the Jewish women were interned. The other Jews from Munich had to make the long journey to Lohhof every day. Although workers were considered indispensable in factories important to the war effort, 64 Jewish workers were withdrawn and deported in November 1941 and another 43 at the end of March 1942. They were initially replaced by mostly older Munich Jews who lived with a non-Jewish partner in a so-called „mixed marriage“. In October 1942, the „Jewish Work Detachment Lohhof“ was disbanded. The few remaining Jewish workers were distributed to other companies in Munich. They were replaced by so-called Eastern workers from Ukraine and forced laborers from Belgium and French prisoners of war. Today, a monument on the site commemorates the history of Nazi forced labor in the Lohhof flax roastery.

From: Gedenkbuch Münchner Juden

Judenhäuser („Jewish houses“)

In the spring of 1939, the Nazi authorities began the forced eviction of apartments in which Jewish citizens lived. As Jews, they were to live exclusively in „Jewish“ houses if possible. For these houses, the planned „Aryanization“ of real estate ownership was temporarily suspended. By the end of April 1941, only 45 of the ca 1,800 apartments in „Jewish“ ownership had been left because of this „Aryanization of housing“. The „de-Judaization“ of dwellings in Munich contributed significantly to the further exclusion, social isolation and deprivation of rights of these Munich residents. They lost their homes and often their last places of refuge and were often crammed together in the „Jewish houses“ in an inhumane manner and were easily controlled there for later deportation. In 264 apartments, mostly in houses earlier owned by Jewish owners (some of whom had already emigrated), Jews had to stay for this purpose. At the end of 1941, there were probably about two dozen „Jewish houses“ in Munich, comprising a total of over 300 apartments. Often four or five families shared an apartment. The loss of their own dwelling, which in the years before had often served as the last refuge from National Socialist persecution, meant a massive attack on the Jewish community. In August 1941, according to the Jewish Community, almost 1,500 Jews lived in „Jewish houses“. They were mainly women, often old and completely impoverished due to the National Socialist plundering – because men found it much easier to find host countries as emigrants due to their professions and greater financial strength.

Munich’s „Jewish houses“ were, for example, Franz-Joseph-Strasse 15, Galeriestrasse 30, Goethestrasse 23 and 66, Jakob-Klar-Strasse 7, Kaiser-Ludwig-Platz 1, Leopoldstrasse 42 and 52(a), Maria-Theresia-Strasse 23, Thierschstrasse 7, Triftstrasse 9, Frundsbergstrasse 8, Möhlstrasse 30, Richard-Wagner-Strasse 11, Bürkleinstrasse 16 (today 20) as well as Widenmayerstrasse 39 and 41. Jews who had been expelled from their homes were also sent to the apartments of Jewish tenants in houses owned by non-Jews. However, when the tenants were thrown out or deported, the subtenants had to leave as well. This practice was evident, for example, in Bauerstrasse 22, Widenmayerstrasse 36 and Martiusstrasse 8.

Another option for evicted Jews to find accommodation in the short to medium term were boarding houses, some of which apparently specialized in accommodating Jewish citizens.

The approximately 20 „Jewish houses“ in Munich had been an essential element of the forced expropriation of German Jewish families since 1939. In most cases they had to move there before the deportation to the concentration camps. The length of stay in the „Jewish houses“ was usually short, as the people were then taken to assembly camps before their final deportation. The „Aryanization“ dwellings since 1938/39 and the deportations from 1941 led to a „redundancy“ of about 3000 apartments in Munich. Many were taken by party members and their families. The SS Untersturmführer Kurt Stirnweis e.g. moved into the apartment of Charlotte Perutz at Martiusstrasse 8.

Wikipedia, Edith Raim, Anton Steiner, Holger Schelpmeier

Krankenheim Israelitische Privatklinik (Israelite Nursing Home and Privat Clinic) Hermann-Schmidt-Strasse 5-7 1911-1942

Charity as well as care for the sick have always been among the most important basic principles and areas of responsibility of Jewish communities. In 1906, the association „Krankenheim Israelitische Privatklinik e.V.“ was founded on the initiative of the lodge B’nai B’rith and the two doctors August Feuchtwanger and Joseph Marschütz. The association bought the building at Hermann-Schmid-Straße 5 in 1910 and opened a hospital in 1911. The hospital was available to people of all denominations. Until 1933, only half of the patients were Jews. During the First World War, injured front-line soldiers were also given medical care there. In 1919, the building was expanded to include the neighboring building at Hermann-Schmid-Straße 7, and from 1925 a maternity ward was added, until the hospital had 40 beds at the beginning of the 1930s. The private clinic also included a nurses‘ home, which had existed since 1900 and was located in the „Lipschütz’sche Versorgungsanstalt“ in Mathildenstraße until it found new accommodation on the first floor of the Israelitische Privatklinik e.V. in 1911.

Even before the „Nuremberg Laws“ were passed in 1935, the racist ideas of the National Socialists about the „German nation “ and the primacy of „German blood“ had caused brutal cuts in the health care of the Jewish population, which finally led to Jews no longer being cared for in public hospitals in 1936. Refuge and medical care for Jewish people were only offered by the Israelite Hospital in Munich and two other hospitals in Fürth and Würzburg. On the orders of Heinrich Himmler, the home was dissolved in May 1942, and patients, nursing staff and doctors were deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto and concentration camp from June 1942. Among the deported doctors was the head of the Israelite Private Clinic, Julius Spanier. Subsequently, the Nazi organization ‚Lebensborn e.V.‘ appropriated the building without paying the agreed purchase price. The building was destroyed during the war.

View from Kobellstrasse into Hermann-Schmid-Straße, in the back: Israelische Privatklinik, 1910
StadtAM, HB-II-c-0511

Written by Edith Raim

Jewish hospital after 1945

During the Nazi era, Jewish medical infrastructure was; most hospitals were destroyed or repurposed, and only a fraction of Jewish physicians survived the war.Immediately after WWII, as Jewish survivors avoided German doctors, Jewish self-governing bodies established a medical infrastructure. In the spring of 1946, a hospital for the persecuted was opened at the Max-Josef-Stift Gymnasium in Bogenhausen, Munich, under the management of UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration). By April 1949, under Dr. Moses Osterweil, the hospital dedicated itself entirely to caring for surviving Jews. The institution remained active until autumn 1951, providing vital assistance during the initial phase of postwar recovery.

Old people´s homes in München – Residential facilities for old Jewish citizens in need of care in Munich

From the beginning of the 19th century, numerous Jewish welfare organizations took over the care of the old, poor and sick long before the welfare state was established. During the pogrom of 1938, old people’s homes or sanatoriums were preferred targets of the National Socialists. The brutal expulsion and abandonment of the elderly and often helpless people represents a special level of inhumanity. Although the Munich Israelite retirement home could be used again at the end of 1938, the plight of the people was reflected in the overcrowding: old people were often neither physically nor financially able to consider emigrating and were helplessly at the mercy of the harassment and arbitrariness of the National Socialists.

Written by Edith Raim

Lipschütz’sche Versorgungsanstalt, Retirement home, Mathildenstrasse 8/9

Little is known about the Israelite retirement home at Mathildenstrasse 8/9, whose origin is probably a foundation of wealthy Jewish citizens. Since the end of the 19th century, the „Lipschütz’sche Versorgungsanstalt für alte Erwerbsfähig Israeliten“ in Mathildenstrasse was responsible for the old people’s home. In 1937, an additional floor was added to the facility. At that time, the monthly pension price was 90 Reichsmarks.

Mathildenstift, Israelite Retirement Home, 1910
StadtAM, Pett2-1847

During the „Reichskristallnacht“ on November 10, 1938, the house was forcibly evicted. Many residents were put on the street and had to seek shelter with relatives or acquaintances. It took days for the welfare office of the Jewish Community to determine the whereabouts of all the residents. After tough negotiations, the Jewish community succeeded in reopening the house at the beginning of December 1938. However, the old people, who had previously lived in one room each, now had to share a room in twos or threes. In February 1942, about 100 residents lived tightly packed in the home. In March and April 1942, the remaining residents were transferred to the „Judensiedlung Milbertshofen“, to the „Heimanlage für Juden“ at Berg am Laim, to the retirement home on Klenzestrasse or to the „Israelitische Privatklinik“. Shortly after that most of them were deported to Theresienstadt. The „Reich Association of Jews in Germany“ was instructed to sell the building. There were several prospective buyers. The neighboring German Labor Front (DAF) wanted to expand its rooms to the property. The city of Munich also had a strong interest in the building, as there was already a municipal boarding school in the immediate vicinity, which could have been expanded without significant effort by purchasing the „Lipschütz’sche Versorgungsanstalt“. The SS was finally able to secure the bid, which acquired the property including its inventory on 24 March 1942 for the price of 127,500 RM for the Nazi organisation „Lebensborn e.V.“. However, the money never arrived at the „Reich Association of Jews in Germany“.

Altenheim (retirement home) and rituelle Speiseanstalt (ritual dining facility) Klenzestrasse 4

The ritual dining facility at Klenzestrasse 4 was founded in 1906 by the married couple Gabriel and Rosa Ritter. In 1917, the ground floor of the four-storey residential building was rebuilt. Three dining rooms, a kitchen and a pantry were built. From this point on, the welfare responsibles of the Jewish Community took over the restaurant. The Jewish Community then probably acquired the building in the late 1920s. Between 33,000 and 56,000 meals were served there per year. At times, a warming room for unemployed adults and a sewing room were also set up here.

Altenheim und rituelle Speiseanstalt, Klenzestraße 4, um 1908
(Stadtarchiv München)

In 1934, the old people’s home was opened at Klenzestrasse 4, run by Jakob Feibusch in a strictly ritualistic manner. The residents were accommodated in 2- and 3-bed rooms. In 1942, the home comprised three floors and the converted attic. On each floor there were six rooms, a chamber and a bathroom. In February 1942, 54 people lived in the home. Most of them were transferred to the „Judensiedlung Milbertshofen“ at Knorrstrasse 148 in mid-March 1942. On July 10, 1942, the home was completely evacuated, and the last residents were admitted to the „Home for Jews“ in Berg am Laim. The city of Munich had already confiscated the house on June 24, 1942 to set up an auxiliary hospital here. However, all ongoing facility costs had to payed by the „Reich Association of Jews in Germany“ as the owner. At the end of November 1943, the city set up a women’s home in the building. The house was badly damaged in an air raid in March 1944. In 1953, the city returned the Klenzestrasse 4 plot to the Jewish Restitution Successor Organisation (IRSO) as part of reparations. The house had been demolished after the end of the war due to severe damage.

From: Gedenkbuch München

Retirement Home, Israelite Pensioner´s Home, Kaulbachstrasse 65

The Israelite pensioner´s home at Kaulbachstrasse 65 was founded in 1905. The construction of this „home for old people who are not entirely without means“ was made possible and financed by considerable donations from well-known Jewish patrons, among them Baroness Klara von Hirsch-Gereuth (Paris), Josef Kronheimer (Melbourne), the councillors of commerce Berolzheimer and Bernheimer, Albert Landauer, as well as Hermann and Oskar Tietz. The pensioner´s home originally had 15 rooms, but was expanded in 1910 by an additional wing with 17 rooms, a hall and other utility rooms. During the „Reichskristallnacht“ in November 1938, the home was temporarily closed. The local group of the SA held a feast in the building, stole furnishings and money and forced the leader, Regina Tuchmann, to sign a bank power of attorney for several thousand marks under extortionate pressure. The old people had to be provisionally accommodated in private apartments. The boarding school could not be reopened until 1 April 1939. During the eviction and ghettoization of the Jews, the Jewish Community was forced to send more and more people to the old people’s homes. In February 1942, the home was very densely occupied with about 100 residents. A month later, the Jewish Community had to vacate the building for the Nazi organization „Lebensborn e.V.“, which set up a „mother residence“ there. The residents were transferred to the old people’s homes at Klenzestrasse 4 and Mathildenstrasse 9, to the „Heimanlage für Juden“ in Berg am Laim and to the „Judensiedlung“ Milbertshofen. On July 15, 1945, survivors of the Shoah refounded the Jewish Community of Munich in the building at Kaulbachstrasse 65. This was also the first contact for the surviving Munich Jews, returning from Theresienstadt. On February 13, 1970, seven people were killed in an arson attack on the Jewish retirement home. Today, the building is once again used as a retirement home on behalf of the Jewish Community.

From: Gedenkbuch Münchner Juden

Leo Rothmann wurde am 26. Mai 1887 in Kletzko bei Gnesen als Sohn des Kaufmanns Jonas Rothmann und seiner Frau Henriette, geb. Levy geboren.

Im April 1915 zog Leo Rothmann von Breslau nach München und war als Pelzhändler tätig. Am 5. September 1919 heirateten er und Alma Friedmann standesamtlich in Fürth und zwei Tage später unter der Chuppa. Das Ehepaar lebte in Gütergemeinschaft und blieb kinderlos.

Alma wurde am 7. September 1887 in Fürth als Tochter des Kaufmanns Max und seiner Frau Jenny, geb. Bamberger geboren. Alma hatte noch zwei Schwestern. Alma Friedmanns Vater lebte seit 1876 in Fürth. Er war Kaufmann und seit 1892 mit seinem Bruder Inhaber von Max Friedmann, Spielwarenexport u. Commission. 1906–1908 war er Armenpflegschaftsrat.

Leo und Alma Rothmann erlitten ab 1933 Schikanen und Entwürdigungen durch die Nazis und wurden vollständig ausgeraubt, so u.a. ein Bankguthaben von 32.800 RM. Zuletzt besaßen sie nur noch ihre Bekleidung.

Leo Rothmann wurde am 10. November 1938 in das KZ Dachau verschleppt und vier Wochen terrorisiert. Bald darauf im August 1939 wurden sie aus ihrer Wohnung in der Ansbacher Straße 4 geworfen und mussten in die Hohenzollernstraße 130 umziehen.

Im Dezember 1941 wurde das Paar in die Herzogstraße 65 eingewiesen und nach einem Monat in das Internierungslager an der Clemens-August-Straße 9. Von dort aus mussten sie in Milbertshofen Zwangsarbeit leisten.

Am 13. Juli 1942 wurden Alma und Leo Rothmann in einem aus Stuttgart kommenden Transport in das KZ Auschwitz deportiert und vermutlich bald nach der Ankunft am 15. Juli ermordet. Der genaue Tag ihrer Ermordung durch die Nazi-Schergen ist unbekannt. Der Transport wurde von Münchener Gestapobeamten auch als „Straftransport“ bezeichnet, da einige Menschen direkt aus der Haft zugeführt wurden – bei anderen handelte es sich um arbeitsunfähige Kranke. Überlebende dieser Deportation sind nicht bekannt.

Alma Rothmanns Mutter, Jenny Friedmann konnte zu ihrer schon zuvor ausgewanderten jüngsten Tochter, Sophie Seuß, und deren Tochter Hannelore (verheiratete Goldsmith) nach England fliehen und überlebte. Jenny und Sophie starben 1950 bzw. 1986 in London. Auch Almas Schwester Dora Kraemer überlebte und starb 1965 in München.

Vom Amtsgericht München wurde Alma Rothmann am 8. Mai 1961 für tot erklärt. 1962 erklärte die Oberfinanzdirektion gegenüber den Erben, dass von den geraubten Gegenständen (Möbel, Haushaltsgegenstände, Kunst, Bekleidung etc.) nichts bekannt sei.

Ilse-Lotte Nußbaum wurde am 21. September 1927 in Halle an der Saale als Tochter von Leopold und Olga Nußbaum, geb. Gundersheimer geboren. Ihr Vater war Kaufmann und betrieb in Halle an der Saale, Bernhardystraße 56, eine Friseurartikel-Großhandlung. Leopold kam aus Jessnitz im Kreis Dessau-Köthen, Anhalt, wo er am 19. Mai 1897 geboren wurde. Ihre Mutter war Schneiderin und Kontoristin und hatte die Kaufmännische Handelsschule besucht. Olga stammte aus München, wo sie am 19. März 1899 geboren wurde. Sie hatte fünf Geschwister, von denen nur drei das Kindesalter überlebten.

Ilse-Lotte wuchs zunächst in Halle auf, doch im April 1938 verhafteten die Nationalsozialisten Leopold und deportierten ihn in das Konzentrationslager Buchenwald. Am 14. Mai 1938, nach nur drei Wochen in Gefangenschaft, wurde er dort unter ungeklärten Umständen umgebracht.

Nach dem Tod des Vaters waren Mutter Olga und die damals zehnjährige Ilse-Lotte aufgrund der Verfolgung durch Nazis gezwungen, nach München zu ziehen: Im Juli 1938 kamen sie bei Olgas Bruder Paul sowie den Großeltern Moritz Moses und Anna Esther Gundersheimer in der Herzogstraße 65 unter.

Ilse-Lotte besuchte zunächst die Schule. Doch die systematische Entrechtung und Verfolgung jüdischer Bürgerinnen und Bürger durch die Nationalsozialisten nahmen ihr zunehmend jede Möglichkeit auf eine normale Kindheit. Anfang 1942 wurde die mittlerweile 14-Jährige gemeinsam mit Mutter Olga in ein NS-Sammellager in der Clemens-August-Straße 9 eingewiesen.

Von Mai 1942 an musste sie in der Flachsröste Lohhof Zwangsarbeit leisten. Am 13. März 1943 deportierten die Nationalsozialisten schließlich Ilse-Lotte, ihre Mutter sowie 217 weitere jüdischen Münchnerinnen und Münchnern in das KZ Auschwitz. Von dort schrieb das Mädchen am 15. Juni 1943 eine Karte an ihren Freund Walter Geismar in München. Es ist das letzte bekannte Lebenszeichen von ihr:

„Mein lieber Walter! Ich bin gesund. Mir geht es gut. Bin mit Mutti beisammen. Bleibe tapfer. Auch ich lasse mich nicht unterkriegen! Vergiss mich nicht und schreibe sofort. Mutti lässt Dich und Deine lieben Eltern grüssen. Ich grüsse Dich innig und küsse Dich innig und Deine lieben Eltern! In alter Liebe Deine Ilse Kochani”

Ein halbes Jahr später, am 31. Dezember 1943, ermordeten die Nationalsozialisten Ilse-Lotte im KZ Auschwitz. Sie wurde nur 16 Jahre alt.

Die verwitwete Mutter von Olga, wurde in das KZ Theresienstadt deportiert. Sie überlebte die Shoah und wanderte zu Olgas Schwester Ella Silber in die USA aus.

Hans Stefan Hess

Günter Herman Hess

Emanuel Heß wurde am 22. August 1891 in Edelfingen/Baden-Württemberg als Sohn des Kaufmann Salomon Hess und seiner Frau Rosa geboren. Er war ebenfalls Kaufmann und zog 1923 nach München. 1925 heiratete er in Moers Emmy Cahn, die am 9. August 1897 als Tochter des Kaufmanns Hermann Cahn und seiner Frau Sabine in Moers geboren war.

Das Ehepaar wohnte ab 1928 in der Römerstraße 21. Die beiden Söhne Hans Stefan (geboren am 27. April 1927) und Günter Hermann (11. November 1929) verbrachten dort ihre frühe Kindheit.

Emanuel Heß war als Unteroffizier 1915 bis 1918 im 1. Weltkrieg. Ab 1933 betrieb er unter dem Namen Emil Heß zusammen mit seiner Frau die Firma ‚Gebrüder Heß‘, eine Provisionsvertretung und Großhandel mit Mehl, Getreide und Futtermitteln. Der Firmensitz war in der Rückertstraße 6/III.

Emil Heß wurde im Pogrom vom 9./10 November 1938 ins KZ Dachau verschleppt und vier Wochen lang als „Aktionshäftling“ gequält. Während dieser Zeit vollzog das NS-Gewerbeamt selbstherrlich die Abmeldung der Firma. 

Beide Buben wurden 1938 aus den allgemeinen Schulen ausgeschlossen.

Vergeblich bemühte sich die Familie ab 1938 drei Jahre lang um die Ausreise nach Belgien oder in die USA.

In den Anlernwerkstätten der Jüdischen Gemeinde erlernte Emil Heß ein Handwerk (Möbelbeizen und Polieren). Hans Stefan begann eine Lehre als Schlosser. 1941 musste die Familie wegen des judenfeindlichen Entmietungsgesetzes mehrfach in beengte Räume umziehen.

Am 20. November 1941 wurde die ganz Familie mit insgesamt 998 jüdischen Kindern, Frauen und Männern aus München nach Kaunas in Litauen deportiert und fünf Tage später in einer Massenerschießung ermordet.

Günter Hermann wurde kurz davor zwölf Jahre alt, Hans Stefan vierzehn.

Dr. med. Heinrich Adler wurde am 14. September 1878 in Aschaffenburg geboren. Er zog zum Studium nach München, machte dort 1902 sein Medizinisches Staatsexamen und arbeitete anschließend als Gynäkologe und Geburtshelfer.

Heinrich heiratete am 11. April 1910 Martha Weiß, geboren am 18. Dezember 1885, Tochter des Fabrikanten Wilhelm Weiß und seiner Frau Rosa, geborene Sulzer, in ihrem Heimatort Ichenhausen.

Das Ehepaar lebte in München, hier kam ihre Tochter Rosa Lisa am 3. November 1922 zur Welt.

Heinrich Adler war von 1914 bis 1918 während des Ersten Weltkriegs als Oberfeldarzt des 1. Bayerischen Infanterie-Regiments in Frankreich, u.a. in den Schlachten an der Somme und bei Verdun.

1933 im Juni wurde Heinrich Adler vom Schwurgericht München wegen eines Vergehens gegen das Abtreibungsverbot zu zweieinhalb Jahren Gefängnis verurteilt.

1936 musste er seine Arztpraxis schließen, und im Zuge der 4. Verordnung zum Reichsbürgergesetz vom 25. Juli 1938 wurde ihm aufgrund seiner jüdischen Herkunft die Approbation als Arzt entzogen. Nach der Reichspogromnacht 1938 war Dr. Heinrich Adler vom 10. bis 20. November 1938 als „Aktionshäftling“ im KZ Dachau verschleppt. Er kam nach zehn Tagen aufgrund seines Kriegsdienstes frei.

Rosa Lisa Adler besuchte fünf Jahre das Lyzeum an der Paul-Heyse-Straße und anschließend, bis zum erzwungenen Ausscheiden am 09. November 1938, die Handelsschule.

Martha´s Schwester Hedwig Thalmann emigrierte 1939 nach Palästina.

Am 08. August 1940 starb Martha Adler aus nicht bekannten Gründen in München. Die Familie wohnte in der Zeit in der Elisabethstraße 35. Zurück blieben die 19jährige Tochter Rosa Lisa und ihr Vater Heinrich.

Die Familie Adler wohnte von 1931 bis 1935 in der Römerstraße 21. Danach musste sie wegen der Aufhebung des Mieterschutzes für Juden zwangsweise häufig umziehen.

Am 11. August 1941 wurde Rosa Lisa von ihrem Vater getrennt und zur NS-Zwangsarbeit in die Flachsröste in Lohhof bei München verschleppt.

Am 20. November 1941 wurden Alfred Adler aus München und Rosa Lisa Adler aus Lohhof in das Lager Kaunas (Litauen) deportiert und am 25. November 1941 ermordet.

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)