Johanna Einstein, née Stern

Biography of the Kriegshaber Einstein Family

(For Hermann, Mina, Siegbert, Ida and Camilla Einstein, individual biographies have been written.)

Until 1942, members of the extended family who owned the Kriegshaber cattle trading business “Einstein Bros.” lived at 185 Ulmer Strasse. The company’s business relations reached up to the Allgäu alpine region. Until the National Socialists assumed power, it was one of the most renowned livestock trading enterprises in Swabia.

Babette Einstein (1842 – 1914) had the house built in 1906 after her husband Simon (1837 – 1906) had died. Up until then, Simon and Babette Einstein and most of their children had lived at 7 Kriegshaberstrasse.

The couple had eight sons, one of whom died one year after his birth. Simon Einstein had earned the livelihood for the family as butcher and cattle trader. With his work, he had laid the foundation for the breeding and slaughter cattle trading company “Einstein Bros.” Six of his sons managed this business jointly until 1938.

Max Einstein, born on February 21, 1876 in Kriegshaber as the fourth child of Simon and Babette Einstein, was the only son not to join the family business. He took an apprenticeship to become a merchant and decided to join a different company. He worked for the Binswanger liqueur and vinegar factory in the center of Augsburg. For thirty years, his residence was at 185 Ulmer Strasse. In March 1938, he married Johanna Stern, who was born on February 15, 1882 in Körbecke in Soest county.

Heinrich Einstein, born on October 10, 1878 as the fifth of the Einstein brothers, also was trained as a merchant and later became the commercial head of the “Einstein Bros.”. In addition, since 1922, he was chairman of the “Swabia and Neuburg Cattle Traders’ Association”. He assumed this position from his brother Ludwig, who was a co-founder of the trade association of Swabian cattle traders in 1908. He remained chairman until April 1933. After the National Socialists had assumed power, he was pushed out of his position together with the other Jewish board members.

From 1906 to 1942, Heinrich Einstein lived on the first floor of 185 Ulmer Strasse with his brother Moriz and his family. Moriz and Isak Einstein, the two youngest Einstein brothers, had become the owners of the house after their mother’s death. Isak Einstein and his family lived on the second floor.

Isak Einstein was born on March 7, 1884 and, like his father, became a butcher and livestock trader. His territory in the family business was the area around Königsbrunn and Bobingen. In 1912 he married Ida Schlossberger, born June 1, 1890 in Unterdeufstetten near Crailsheim. Four years later, they had a daughter, Beate (1916 – 2008). Beate Einstein managed to emigrate to Great Britain in 1939.

Moriz Einstein was born on November 9, 1886. He, too, became a cattle trader and took care of the subsidiary of the family business in Denklingen. The company had one other affiliate site in Schongau. In 1922, Moriz married Lydia Seligman from Regensburg. She was born on January 5, 1900 in Lambsheim near Ludwigshafen. They had two children: son Siegbert, born in 1924, and daughter Liese, born in 1925.

Even after the Nazis had assumed power, the Einstein brothers continued to experience such a degree of respect in their personal surroundings that they did not consider themselves seriously in danger. Therefore, they did not at first plan to leave Germany, unlike their older children who emigrated as time went on. Until 1933, the extended family enjoyed high esteem since they were not only active in the Jewish community, but also in a number of associations and social institutions, such as the Red Cross.

What happened in November 1938 made the brothers aware of their threatened existence. They decided to leave Germany jointly. They could not imagine emigrating separately. Since they could not find a country which would allow all family members to immigrate together, Moriz and Lydia Einstein decided in 1939 to send their children Siegbert and Liese to Great Britain with a Kindertransport. Seven months after their arrival, totally unexpectedly, Siegbert died of heart inflammation. The news of the death of their son deeply shocked Moriz and Lydia Einstein. As letters of the couple show, after that, their situation became more and more intolerable and hopeless.

When the deportation from Augsburg began in November 1941, the constant fear that it would soon be their turn came in addition. Max, Johanna and Heinrich Einstein had to say good-bye to their relatives four and a half months later. On April 2, 1942, together with their sister-in-law Camilla, the second wife of the eldest Einstein brother Samuel who had died in 1939, they were brought from Augsburg to Munich. Two days later, they were deported to the transit-ghetto Piaski near Lublin. There, they all perished.

Shortly after, Isak and Moriz Einstein were forced to sell the house 185 Ulmer Strasse to the police administration of the German Reich and move with their wives into so-called “Jews’ houses”. The flat on the first floor of the Kriegshaber Synagogue meanwhile had also been seized to become a forced housing.

Isak and Ida Einstein were forced to spend their last months in Kriegshaber in the “Jews’ house” at 207 Ulmer Strasse. In September 1942, Hermann, the third of the Einstein brothers still alive, and his wife Mina were accommodated, too, in the flat in the Synagogue building. On 8 or 9 March, 1943 the three couples were brought to Munich. From there, they were deported on 13 March to the Auschwitz concentration camp where they were all murdered.

Translation by Michael Bernheim