Käthe-Niederkirchner-Str. 35
10407 Berlin
Germany
Isidor Lewy (born 1859 in Bojanowo/Kreis Kröben) acquired the newly built house Lippehner Str. 35 in 1905. He lived there from about 1915 together with his wife Lina (born Lewy 1875 in Posen) and their daughters Hildegard (born 1901) and Charlotte (born 1903).
In 1936, the younger daughter Charlotte moved back to the parental home with her two sons Peter (b. 1930) and Werner (b. 1933) after her separation from husband Max Gossels. In the same year Isidor Lewy died and was buried in Weißensee.
Charlotte contributed to the family's income with a "beauty salon" in the apartment. Later, both daughters had to do forced labor.
Lina was forced to sell the house for less than its value in 1939, but remained in the house as a tenant. Shortly after, Charlotte Gossels was able to organize the departure of both sons to France. From there, the brothers managed to escape to the USA in 1941.
Lina Lewy died shortly after her deportation to Theresienstadt on 3.10.1942 according to medical findings of heart failure.
Hildegard Lewy and Charlotte Gossels were deported to Auschwitz in March 1943 and both were killed there immediately.
In addition to the long-standing Jewish tenants* in the house, others were added from 1938 onwards, latterly also as subtenants* in the apartments already occupied.
These were "evacuated" in 1941-1943 almost without exception. After the war, the house was confiscated and came under state administration. Only with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the rightful heirs of the former owners, Peter and Werner Gossels, got the house back.
On May 12, 2019, a commemorative plaque in the form of a "silent bell" was unveiled at the house with the names of 83 former Jewish residents of the so-called "Judenhaus," the vast majority of whom were murdered during the Nazi era.
Peter and Werner Gossels with nine family members from the USA as well as Martin Schott from Sydney (whose family lived in the house from 1912 until emigration in 1948) had also traveled to the dedication of the plaque.
Commemorative plaque as a shiny brass plate, 41cm wide and 50cm high, on it 40 attached signs in 10 lines and 4 columns with the names of the former Jewish house inhabitants, each with a brass roundel as an abstracted bell button. Above it, in place of the speech field, a likewise attached sign with supplementary words.
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