Zellers family second apartment in Spandau

The Zeller family had to close their store at Breite Str. 18 due to boycott measures by the National Socialists and thus give up their large apartment at Askanierring 8. They moved to Havelstr. 20 in 1935. There, in their apartment on the first floor, they tried to continue their fabric business. There was a cinema called Odeum there at that time and today it is called Cineplex. In front of the Cineplex you can find today the stumbling stones of Heinrich and Fanny Zeller.

Heinrich Zeller, born on 21.01.1894 in Vienna. Fanny Zeller, geb.Gottesmann on 04.12.1891 in Boryslaw. Frederic Zeller, b. on 20.05.1924 in Berlin. Lilian Zeller, born in Berlin 1927.

Frederic Zeller fled overnight alone to Holland on 12/14/1938 and stayed there until 4/17/1939. His sister Lilian told her mother six days later, "Mutti ich brennen aus von zu Hause!" Her mother laughed in response. On 08.02.1939 Lilian made good on her threat and fled at 23:45 by train to Kleve and then on to Rotterdam to her brother. Together they fled further with  a Kindertransport to England.

Father Heinrich Zeller fled first to Belgium and from there on 04.03.1940 to France, because the Nazis had occupied Belgium.

Fanny Zeller tried to follow him at the last moment, but was picked up in Cologne and sent back to Berlin, where she was forced to live in a so-called 'Judenwohnung' in the Tiergarten until she was deported on the 5th transport to Minsk in November 1941  and murdered.

Heinrich Zeller was also unable to complete his escape successfully. He was picked up near Paris, extradited to Nazi Germany, and murdered in Majdanek or Ausschwitz. Frederic and Lilian Zeller went to the USA after the war. In 1989, Frederic Zeller published his diaries in New York under the title  "When time run out".