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Moritz Bacharach
© Privatbesitz

Moritz Bacharach * 1888

Brahmsallee 13 (Eimsbüttel, Harvestehude)

1944 Theresienstadt
1944 Auschwitz 1945 Todesmarsch Riesa

further stumbling stones in Brahmsallee 13:
Erna B. Bacharach, Veilchen Elias, Gretchen Fels, Jona (John) Fels, Olga Guttentag, Fanny Guttentag, Bruno Schragenheim, Irma Schragenheim

Moritz Bacharach, born on 5 June 1888 in Seligenstadt, deported on 1 Oct. 1944 from the Netherlands to Auschwitz, shot on death march in Apr. 1945 in Saxony
Erna Bacharach, née Strauss, born on 9 Aug. 1899 in Michelstadt, deported on 1 Oct. 1944 from the Netherlands to Auschwitz, died during deportation

Brahmsallee 13

Moritz and Erna Bacharach lived in Hamburg for only four years. They fled the Nazis from a rural region to the big city and from there to the Netherlands. The married couple came from Hessen: Moritz Bacharach was born on 5 June 1888 as son of Abraham Bacharach and Philippina Bacharach, née Stein, in Seligenstadt near Darmstadt. At the time of his birth, the Jewish Community prospered there, with Jews accounting for around 5.5 percent of the small-town population. Most of them were active as merchants or – like Moritz Bacharach’s ancestors since about 1700 – as butchers. After the eight-grade elementary school (Volksschule) from 1902 to 1904, he completed a commercial apprenticeship (trainee as a commercial clerk) at the Darmstadt-based Isaak Mayer grain trading business. His brother Hermann Bacharach, four years his senior, had already lived and worked as a commercial clerk in Darmstadt since 1900. The brothers resided together in Darmstadt as subtenants at Friedrichstrasse 11 (with Benjamin Simon) and at Louisenstrasse 34 (with Süsskind Ellenstein). Baruch Bacharach (born on 17 July 1863 in Seligenstadt), probably an uncle, also lived as a merchant in Darmstadt since 1881; after the death of his wife Minna, née Mayer (born on 28 Apr. 1865 in Seeheim), he moved back to Seligenstadt in 1906. Starting in 1904, Moritz Bacharach worked in his father’s cattle trade, following in the footsteps of his ancestors. In Apr. 1915, he was drafted into the Imperial Army as a railway pioneer, was stationed on the western front, and took part in the month-long Battle of Verdun, for which he received the Honor Cross for Front-Line Veterans. After the war, Moritz Bacharach worked again in his father’s company as a livestock trader until 1928.

Moritz Bacharach and Erna Strauss were married on 18 Jan. 1922. She was born on 9 Aug. 1899 in Michelstadt, the daughter of Theodor Strauss (1870–1933) and Johanna Strauss, née Oppenheimer (born in 1874), and had three siblings: Bella (born on 27 Feb. 1897) and Hilda (born on 25 Oct. 1904), as well as brother Günter (born on 10 Apr. 1917). The family lived in Michelstadt at Grosse Gasse 20, where their father, a successful cattle trader, also had his business premises. Theodor Strauss had actively shaped the fate of his hometown as a German Social Democratic (SPD) member of the municipal council, chairman of the Jewish Community, and board member of the Odenwaldbank.

The young couple possibly planned to settle in the former Electoral Hessian residential city of Hanau, about 20 kilometers (about 12.5 miles) away. Relatives of them lived there, including since 1893 the merchant Meier Hirschmann (1876–1960), who was married to Frieda Bacharach. From about 1910, he was co-owner of the Kaiser & Hirschmann silverware factory and from about 1925, co-owner of the Hirschmann & Co. banking business; the family of four emigrated from Hanau to Luxembourg and from there to the USA in 1938/39. As well, Marcus (Mordechai) Bacharach (born on 1 Oct. 1857 in Seligenstadt, died on 31 Aug. 1926 in Hanau), son of the merchant Usiel Bacharach and Friedericke, née Berberich, also resided in Hanau since 1890, where he was senior partner of the M. Bacharach banking business. According to the resident registration documents, Moritz and Erna Bacharach did not change their place of residence, but their three children were born in Hanau: in 1923, daughter Hannelore, who already died the following year; on 29 Jan. 1925, son Albrecht; and on 7 Sept. 1928, son Walter.

Erna Bacharach had moved on 1 May 1922 from her birthplace Michelstadt, where about 4,000 mostly Protestant inhabitants lived, to Seligenstadt, about 55 kilometers (some 34 miles) north of the city, to join her husband. Initially, they resided there with the Bacharach parents-in-law at Freihofstrasse 6.

In Apr./May 1929, Moritz and Erna Bacharach’s family of four moved from Seligenstadt with its 5,000 inhabitants to Salzwedel, a district town with a population of about 15,000 in the northern Altmark (today Saxony-Anhalt). His brother, the banker Hermann Bacharach, (born on 24 Feb. 1884 in Seligenstadt), had already moved there in 1907 and opened the private bank "Bankfirma H. Bacharach” named after him in June 1907 (possibly as a continuation of the Löbenstein & Comp. banking business), in which 23 persons were employed in 1928. In addition, the private bank had founded the Altmärkische Grundstücksverwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, a property management company, in June 1928. In 1910, Hermann Bacharach was elected second chairman of the Synagogue Community of Salzwedel. In 1918, he had married Bertha Neustadt (born on 6 Mar. 1887 in Salzwedel), the daughter of the Salzwedel merchant Hermann Neustadt and Rosalie, née Levy.

For 1930/1931, the address of Moritz and Erna Bacharach in Salzwedel was Lohteich 5a; located in this street was also the small synagogue of the Jewish Community of Salzwedel. After the Nazi party (NSDAP) took power in Jan. 1933, Nazi intimidation increased in Salzwedel as well under the NSDAP district leader Dr. med. Gerhard von Toerne (born on 4 Mar. 1892 in Kronau, independent physician in Salzwedel since 1929, NSDAP member and NSDAP district leader since 1930). In 1934, the banker Hermann Bacharach was abducted and mistreated by two SS men. On 31 Aug. 1935, his private bank was "Aryanized” at an early stage, taken over by the Zuckschwerdt & Beuchel banking house (Magdeburg) and continued as its branch. On 3 Sept. 1935, a brief note appeared in the Salzwedeler Wochenblatt: "A bank takeover. On 31 August, the Zuckschwerdt & Beuchel banking house – Magdeburg took over the Jewish Bacharach bank in Salzwedel. The Jewish employees are said to have left the company. The Zuckschwerdt & Beuchelsche Company has apparently been in existence since 1918.” A week later, the same newspaper reported on two pages about the new owners and that the takeover took place on 31 Aug. 1935 based on a "suggestion by the Reich Commissioner for the Banking Industry,” Friedrich Ernst (1889–1960), who had held this office since 1931. Hermann Bacharach apparently deregistered his banking business retroactively on 9 Sept. 1935 according to the commercial tax file: "To the commercial tax committee of the city of Salzwedel. I closed my banking business as of 31 August of this year and simultaneously transferred it to Bankhaus Zuckschwerdt & Beuchel – Magdeburg with the concurrent establishment of a branch in Salzwedel. I hereby deregister my banking business. With Nazi salute, Hermann Bacharach.”

Moritz Bacharach, the head of the Altmärkische Grundstücksverwaltungsgesellschaft from 1929 to 1935, had to resign from the company due to growing anti-Semitic pressure and in 1936 set up his own business in Salzwedel as a cattle trader, for which he obtained an itinerant trade license at the cost of 200 RM. Both the residential and business address was Gertraudenstrasse 18 in 1936 and the house was owned by the Bacharach couple. The spouses formed two complementary opposites in the family: Moritz Bacharach was respected as a strict and hard-working head of the family, and the mother was loved for her understanding manner. The Bacharachs saw themselves as a liberal Jewish household in which only the high Jewish holidays were observed. Moritz Bacharach, a strong-willed and proud man, also demanded that his sons assert themselves. When the older son, the only Jew at Jahn-Gymnasium high school in Salzwedel, was constantly subjected to teasing, he had to take lessons in self-defense at his father’s insistence. In general, ten-year-old Albrecht Bacharach earned respect with his "Aryan” classmates mainly through good athletic achievements, and he was captain in the soccer team of the sports club.

The Nazi party and the state institutions it controlled observed precisely the behavior of Jews; any misconduct usually led to significantly higher penalties than for non-Jews. Thus, after Moritz Bacharach had submitted a form late, the disproportionately high fine was accompanied on 19 March 1936 by a blatant threat from the chairman of the meat stock processing association, Hans Christian Hirsch (born on 5 Jan. 1877 in Magdeburg, a lawyer, from 1920 to 1939 in Halle, died in 1939): "I hereby punish you with a fine of 200 RM and draw your attention to the fact that in future I will take firm measures against you with all means at my disposal.” The professional destruction of Moritz Bacharach was carried out by Wilhelm Gagelmann (born on 23 May 1885 in Lüge/Salzwedel administrative district, member of the NSDAP since 1 Sept. 1931, district farmers’ leader since 1933). Gustav Kordt (born on 4 Sept. 1893 in Klein Wieblitz, a member of the NSDAP since 1 May 1932), too, a livestock distributor and district professional association leader, participated in the witch-hunt with false accusations and anti-Semitic stereotypes: "There would be far more crimes to pin on him (Moritz Bacharach) if there were not so many lackeys to the Jews who, for the sake of money, covered the Jews’ backs.” Various new criminal offenses were issued by the judiciary directed exclusively against Jews. In Badel near Kalbe/Altmarkkreis, for example, Moritz Bacharach is said to have shown the "Nazi salute,” which was forbidden for Jews and was punished by the District Court (Amtsgericht) in Kalbe (Milde), about 30 kilometers (approx. 18.5 miles) southeast of Salzwedel, in Mar. 1936 with three months in prison, whereby the release was subject to the condition that he leave Salzwedel.

His brother Hermann Bacharach, four years his senior, applied to the Salzwedel tax office for a tax clearance certificate (Unbedenklichkeitsbescheinigung) at the end of Oct. 1936 for the purpose of emigrating to Palestine with his wife Bertha and their two daughters Ruth and Esther.

On 29 Oct. 1936, Moritz and Erna Bacharach moved with their two sons from Salzwedel to Hamburg, about 140 kilometers (some 87 miles) away; as a business, Moritz Bacharach indicated livestock trading, as he continued to run his business in Salzwedel. Erna Bacharach took care of the written affairs of the company. On 30 Oct. 1936, Moritz Bacharach registered with his wife and two sons for the Jewish Community in Hamburg. They moved into an apartment at Brahmsallee 13 on the second floor, where three other tenants resided: the editor J. Ollig and briefly the sisters Olga Guttentag (born on 15 Jan. 1884 in Hamburg) and Fanny Guttentag (born on 10 Sept. 1885 in Hamburg), who had still operated a "photographer’s workshop” at Husumerstrasse 19 in 1932 and were deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto on 19 July 1942, as well as a woman by the name of Maria Haese.

Both of the Bacharach sons attended the nearby Talmud Tora School. After Nov. 1937, Erna Bacharach moved with her sons to Grindelberg 29 (Harvestehude), where they lived as lodgers in two rooms with the sales representative Erich Israel (born on 8 Sept. 1895) and his family, who emigrated to the USA in Mar. 1939. This move meant a reduction of the household effects for the Bacharachs and it constituted only a stopover before their emigration. Moritz Bacharach was no longer in Hamburg by the time the change of residence took place.

Despite the Nazis’ anti-Jewish policy of marginalization and deprivation of rights, Moritz Bacharach was not prepared to accept the role of a victim without complaint. It is testimony to his self-confidence that he took legal action against individual instances of discrimination: For example, in Apr. 1936 against a high fine for late submission of forms to the arbitration court of the Central Association of the German Livestock Industry in Berlin (Hauptvereinigung der Deutschen Viehwirtschaft) (via the lawyers Dr. Ludwig Mannheimer and Kurt Maschke, Berlin) and in Mar. 1937 against the denial of admission to the cattle trade (via the lawyer Max Eichholz, Hamburg). When he was no longer in Hamburg, in Mar. 1938 his wife (via the lawyer Adolf von Berg, Berlin) applied on his behalf for "striking of criminal sentences with the competent authorities.”

The livestock-trading license in Hamburg was withdrawn on 13 Feb. 1937 by the Livestock Industry Association (Viehwirtschaftsverband) Schleswig-Holstein (based in Hamburg, in the Chilehaus) without valid justification; the phrase used was, "because you do not possess the necessary personal and professional qualifications for the livestock trade.” The economic advisor of the Nazi Gau leadership in Hamburg explicitly supported this measure on official letterhead. This meant that Moritz Bacharach was virtually banned from working, as at the same time Jews were also excluded from business life in other industries. His Hamburg lawyer Max Eichholz (1881–1943) described the anti-Semitic sentiments in Salzwedel at the expense of Moritz Bacharach in his application: "… in Salzwedel, he only made himself unpopular as a Jew with Gustav Kordts, the leader of the district professional association. Almost all the other people with whom he has had personal contact give him the very best testimony.” Moritz Bacharach’s attempt to regain admission ended with a settlement at the Hamburg Arbitration Court in May 1937, which reflected the balance of power in Germany: Moritz Bacharach received a temporary license to the livestock trade until 31 Dec. 1938, on condition that "he no longer carried out any such transactions after that.” Shortly afterward, the Hamburg customs investigation department paid the spouses a visit to get an overview of their financial situation and possible emigration plans. In addition, the officials also noted that the bank balances of the married couple had been transferred from the Bankhaus Zuckschwerdt & Beuchel (Salzwedel) to the Bankhaus M. M. Warburg & Co. (Hamburg), that Josef Renzburg worked as a tax consultant for them in Hamburg, and that Moritz Bacharach might want to become a partner in a company specializing in the distribution of new patents.

As there was no future for the Bacharach family under the state-sponsored anti-Semitism, Moritz Bacharach looked outside Nazi Germany for a perspective for the family: From the beginning of March to mid-April 1937, he was said to have stayed in the USA, but he saw no perspective for himself and the family there. In the fall of 1937, he went to the Netherlands. Attorney Rudolf Warburg (Hamburg) wrote to the foreign currency office in Hamburg on his behalf that he had "gone to Holland on 31 Oct. 1937 to visit his relatives due to health considerations.” When Moritz Bacharach had still not returned to Germany in Dec. 1937, he was classified as a foreigner under foreign currency law and his properties were blocked for sale. The other activities Erna Bacharach undertook with her husband’s general power of attorney and the support of their lawyer in Hamburg bear witness to the restrictive regulations, the bureaucratic plundering of property, and extensive lack of rights: In Nov. 1937, she sold the house in Salzwedel (Gertraudenstrasse 18) under the official taxable value to the dentist Ernst Wehmann in Salzwedel (born on 22 Feb. 1899 in Gross-Ballerstedt, since 1 May 1933 member of the NSDAP, the National Socialist Motor Corps [NSKK], and the National Socialist Physicians’ League) in order to pay the required 14,000 RM in "Reich flight tax” ("Reichsfluchtsteuer”). In Dec. 1937, she listed in detail the assets for the Rechtes Alsterufer Tax Office, in May 1938, she transferred 30,000 RM to the Netherlands via Altreu (Allgemeine Treuhand-Stelle für die jüdische Auswanderung, Berlin), whereby the transfer loss amounted to 65 percent. On 25 Nov. 1937, the foreign currency office with the Chief Finance Administrator in Hamburg issued a detailed request for information to the Residents’ Registration Office, which forwarded it to the responsible police station: "I request immediate notification as to whether Moritz Bacharach is still registered for Hamburg, at Brahmsallee 13. Is his furniture still in the apartment? Is he still paying the rent? Is he a tenant or a subtenant? Where is his family?”

In Jan. 1938, the Seligenstadt local NSDAP group expressed, on an official party letterhead, its interest to the Chief Finance Administrator in Hamburg in a plot of land owned by Moritz Bacharach in Seligenstadt "if his immovable property is to be confiscated.”

On 17 May 1938, Erna Bacharach and her sons also emigrated to the Netherlands. Moritz Bacharach had lived for almost seven months in Hilversum, a suburb of Amsterdam in the province of North Holland with 45,000 inhabitants, where he had sought accommodation for his family as well as work. The Jewish Community there helped as best it could in the search for accommodation and jobs. After temporary quarters at Hoogelaarderweg 137 (Jan. 1938), Hoogelaarderweg 152 (Feb.-Mar. 1938), and Mauritzlaan 26 (Mar.–May 1938), Moritz Bacharach found an apartment at Dalweg 5 in Hilversum and he got the family to join him. The sons attended the nearby school. According to their information, Moritz Bacharach and Friedrich (Fritz) Diewald (born on Sept. 1898 in Münstermaifeld, Mayen district), who had also emigrated, apparently founded a livestock trading business, which, however, was not registered with the responsible Chamber of Commerce. Before his emigration, Fritz Diewald had been head of the synagogue in Münstermaifeld. In Hilversum, the Bacharachs met the Weiss family, who had fled from Cologne to Hilversum in 1933, and became friends: Joseph "Jupp” Weiss (1893–1976) had meanwhile become the head of the youth section of the Dutch Zionist Federation (NZB) and had opened a factory for leather goods; his wife, Erna Weiss, née Falk, had been a well-known opera singer in the Rhineland. Weiss’ sons Wolfgang (born in 1924) and Klaus-Albert (born in 1928) also lived in Hilversum.

Meanwhile, the Nazi state continued to deal with the Bacharach family: On 15 May 1939, the Hamburg Gestapo informed the responsible tax office that "state police seizure had been imposed (…) on the entire domestic assets of the Jewish emigrant” and on 13 June 1939, the Chief Finance Administrator informed his subordinate foreign currency office that the confiscation of the assets and the revocation of citizenship for Bacharach was being planned. The German Reich documented the expatriation of Moritz and Erna Bacharach on 24 June 1939 in the Reichsanzeiger. They now lived in the Netherlands as stateless persons, as did the Diewald couple, which reduced their chances of emigrating to a country further away from Nazi Germany.

The neutral Netherlands were occupied by Nazi Germany in May 1940. The news of the German invasion roused Moritz Bacharach from his first attempts to establish himself in Holland, and he immediately tried to leave the country with his family. The Bacharach family and the Diewald couple took a private car to the small port city of Ijmuiden in order to flee to Britain even without visas. They had already been accommodated as passengers on a small ship, which could not put to sea, however: German warplanes had bombed the port’s sluice gates as well as two ships that already sailed ahead – the escape had failed. The family returned to Hilversum. Moritz Bacharach tried in vain to obtain affidavits (declarations of sponsorship) for an exit to the USA. The anti-Semitic laws of the German Reich were gradually introduced in the occupied Netherlands.

On 29 Jan. 1942, members of the German Wehrmacht and Gestapo gained access to the Bacharach family’s apartment. Whether the family received, as Joseph Weiss had two days earlier, a written summons from the Jewish Council ("Joodsche Raad”) in Amsterdam is not known: "The German authorities have ordered us to inform you that on Wednesday, 29 Jan. 1942, between 8 a.m. and 10:30 a.m., the police will come to your home with the order that you leave the apartment and hand over the keys to them. By train, which leaves Amsterdam at 12:55 p.m. and stops in Hilversum, you must travel with your family to the Westerbork camp and stay there. You may take as much as you can carry with you. You must hand over a list of the contents to the police officers when they call on you. Bed linen, blankets, towels, and underwear must be brought. You may neither sell your property nor transfer it to others. A list of shops and businesses belonging to those coming to Westerbork will be made available to the German authorities. The German authorities warn that the names of those who do not comply with this order will be published in the police gazette and demand for protective custody will be ordered against them. The Chairmen, signed A. Ascher, signed Prof. Dr. D. Cohen.” The house was sealed after the occupants had been transported off, and the entire furnishings including valuables and property were confiscated on behalf of the Greater German Reich.

The "Westerbork police Jews’ transit camp” was under the command of SS-Obersturmführer [an SS rank equivalent to first lieutenant] Albert Konrad Gemmeker (born in 1907, police officer, entry into the NSDAP on 1 May 1937, SS rank as of 1 Nov. 1940), but it was administered by the Jewish inmates themselves; Moritz Bacharach worked in the camp kitchen, Erna Bacharach had taken over the supervision of the barracks of the elderly, Albrecht Bacharach worked in the boiler house, and Walter Bacharach was trained in the metalworking workshop. Joseph Weiss took over the management of the youth barracks in the camp.

The Bacharach family was deported from Westerbork to the Theresienstadt Ghetto in occupied Czechoslovakia, where the parents arrived on 20 Jan. 1944; Walter Bacharach followed on 25 Feb. 1944, Albrecht Bacharach only on 6 Sept. 1944 with the last transport from Westerbork. On 28 Sept. 1944, the Jewish Yom Kippur holiday, the sons Walter and Albrecht Bacharach were deported from Theresienstadt to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp; on 1 Oct. 1944, the same happened to Moritz and Erna Bacharach. Erna Bacharach is said to have died during the three-day journey in an overcrowded cattle car, another witness reported that she was murdered in the gas chamber immediately after arriving in Auschwitz; later she was declared dead as of 4 Oct. 1944.

On 8 Oct. 1944 Moritz, Albrecht, and Walter Bacharach were assigned to a forced laborer transport and loaded into cattle cars. In Taucha near Leipzig in northern Saxony, they were interned in a newly established subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp. Every morning, they marched under SS guard from their camp through the city to Hugo Schneider AG (HASAG) the metal goods plant, where they had to produce bazookas and rocket launchers for the Wehrmacht. Albrecht Bacharach was employed as a welder because of his previous training. They worked as labor slaves until complete exhaustion, with massive malnutrition and physical assaults. Albrecht was beaten so badly that his nasal bone broke and an 80-percent hearing loss occurred in his left ear. Ahead of the Allies advancing from the East and West, the subcamp was evacuated on 10 Apr. 1945, and the weakened prisoners were driven southeast toward the Sudeten Mountains without food and drink and also without any breaks. On this death march, Moritz Bacharach collapsed exhausted and was shot by an SS guard. The two sons survived heavily traumatized, Albrecht was emaciated from 77 down to 41 kilograms (approx. 170 lbs to 90 lbs). At the end of June 1945, they returned to Hilversum in the Netherlands, where they were received by friends of their parents.

Albrecht Bacharach emigrated to the USA in 1947 to join a sister of his father living in Chicago, worked in a tree nursery from 1948 onward, and later founded his own orchard (Al Bacharach Inc. – Fruit Trees with Character); he died in 1984 in a traffic accident in Michigan City, Indiana.

Walter Zwi Bacharach went to Palestine in 1946, where his father’s brother, Hermann Bacharach (1884–1980), had lived in Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv since 1937 and ran a nursery. Walter studied and taught Modern History at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan, was Director of the Leo Baeck Institute in Jerusalem, worked in Yad Vashem, and was a long-standing member of the Joseph Carlebach Working Group of the University of Hamburg. He died in Tel Aviv in 2014.

Erna Bacharach’s mother Johanna Strauss, née Oppenheimer (born on 13 Apr. 1874 in Fränkisch-Crumbach), probably moved from Michelstadt to Guntersblum near Mainz in Sept. 1938 and lived there as a subtenant with the merchant, wine commission agent, and member of the Banner of the Reich (Reichsbanner) Eugen Wolf (born on 2 Jan. 1893 in Planig/Hessen) at Hauptstrasse 41. The apartment of the Wolf family was devastated on 10 Nov. 1938 during the November Pogrom. In Feb. 1939, the Wolf family moved to Frankfurt/Main (at Sandweg 14), from where they were deported to the Minsk Ghetto on 11/12 Nov. 1941. Probably after the November Pogrom of 1938, Johanna Strauss moved in with the widow Betty Liebmann, née Kahn (born on 19 May 1883 in Heidelberg) at Hauptstrasse 60. On 6 Jan. 1939, she sold her house under massive pressure to Karl-Wilhelm Rösch, the NSDAP local group leader and mayor of Guntersblum. On 20 Feb. 1939, Betty Liebmann and her son Ludwig Liebmann moved to Heidelberg. Betty Liebmann was deported to the Gurs internment camp in the "Free Zone” [unoccupied] of collaborating Vichy France on 22 Oct. 1940 and to the Auschwitz extermination camp on 7 Sept. 1942. In Sept. 1938, Moritz and Erna Bacharach transferred to Johanna Strauss 3,000 RM toward emigration, of which only 600 RM had been released by the foreign currency office in Hamburg by the beginning of Jan. 1939. Johanna Strauss moved to Frankfurt/Main in Jan./Feb. 1939. No evidence of emigration could be found. The inclusion in the Memorial Book of the Federal Archives in Koblenz (but without the place and year of deportation) suggests that she became a victim of Nazi persecution.

Erna Bacharach’s sister Bella Haas, née Strauss (born on 27 Feb. 1897 in Michelstadt), lived in Frankfurt/Main (at Grosse Friedberger Strasse 39 with Adele Reis) at the end of 1938 and emigrated to New York.

Moritz Bacharach’s widowed sister Helene Wolf, née Bacharach (born on 7 May 1882 in Seligenstadt), moved from Frankfurt/Main (at Neuhausstrasse 3, as a subtenant of Sophie Edelmuth) to Mainz in Oct. 1938. In Mar. 1941, she succeeded in emigrating to Chicago (USA). She obtained for her nephew Albrecht a visa to the USA in 1947.

A Stolperstein was laid for Erna Bacharach in Hamburg in 2007 and in Michelstadt in 2010.


Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.


Stand: September 2019
© Björn Eggert

Quellen: 1; 2; 4; 5; 8; StaH 314-15 (OFP), F 72 (Auswanderungsakte Moritz u. Erna Bacharach); StaH 351-11 (AfW), 47740 (Albrecht Bacharach); StaH 351-11 (AfW), 48973 (Walter Bacharach); StaH 377-10 I (Behörde für Ernährung u. Landwirtschaft I), Cd 19 Fasz 1 (Widerruf der Zulassung zum Viehhandel für den Viehverteiler Moritz Bacharach, 1936–1938); Bundesarchiv Berlin (ehemals BDC), NSDAP-Gaukartei, Wilhelm Gagelmann, Gustav Kordts, Dr. Ernst, Wehmann; Stadtarchiv Michelstadt, Geburtsregister Nr. 61/ 1899 (Erna Bertha Strauss), Geburtsregister Nr. 83/1904 (Hilda Strauss); Stadtarchiv Darmstadt, Melderegister-Blatt (Moritz Bacharach, Hermann Bacharach, Baruch Bacharach, Isaak Mayer); Stadtarchiv Hanau, Korrespondenz mit dem Seligenstädter Bürgermeister 1966, Angaben zu Marcus Bacharach und Meier Hirschmann; Stadtarchiv Salzwedel, Gewerbesteuer-Veranlagung (Moritz Bacharach, Hermann Bacharach), Abmeldedatum nach Hamburg u. Verurteilung von Moritz Bacharach, Heiratsregister 1918 (Hermann Bacharach u. Berta Neustadt), Salzwedeler Wochenblatt 22.5.1935 (Wilhelm Gagelmann); Institut für Stadtgeschichte Frankfurt am Main, Meldeunterlagen (Neuhausstr. 3); Standesamt Maifeld (Geburtsregister 174/1898, Friedrich Diewald); Herinneringscentrum Kamp Westerbork (NL); Die Ausbürgerung deutscher Staatsangehöriger 1933–1945 nach den im Reichsanzeiger veröffentlichten Listen, München 1985; Hamburger Adressbuch (Straßenverzeichnis, Brahmsallee 13 u. Grindelberg 29), 1938; Meyers Lexikon, Leipzig 1929, Band 5, S. 1561 (Hilversum), Band 8, S. 409 (Michelstadt), Band 10, S. 918 (Salzwedel), Band 11, S. 91 (Seligenstadt); Arnsberg, Jüdische Gemeinden in Hessen, S. 86; Arntz, Jupp Weiss; Block, Wir waren eine glückliche Familie …, S. 41, 55; Haag, Ich gebe ihnen einen Namen, S. 175–180; Köhler, "Arisierung", S. 117/118; Meyer, Verfolgung, S.156–165 (Autobiografie von Walter Zwi Bacharach 1985); Morisse, Rechtsanwälte, S. 125 (Max Eichholz); Schmall, Juden, S. 30; Guntersblumer Blätter, Stolperstei­ne in Guntersblum, S. 19/20 (Betty Liebmann), S. 41 (Eugen Wolf); www.geni.com/people/Erna-Bertha-Bacharach; www.geni.com/people/Moritz-Bacharach; http://www.echo-online.de/region/odenwaldkreis/michelstadt/Wie-Nachfahren-ermordeter-Juden-Michelstadt-erleben; art1274, 4926784; http://www.yad-vashem.org/yv/en/education/interviews/bacharach.asp; jeweils eingesehen am 14.4.2015; http://www.joodsmonument.nl (eingesehen 17.4.2015); http://zuhause.volksstimme.de/blog/2014/02/22/freundschaft (eingesehen 13.5.2015); http://www.alemannia-judaica.de/fraenkisch_crumbach_synagoge.htm (Johanna Strauss geb. Oppenheimer, eingesehen 26.5.2015); http://www.alemannia-
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