Department store - Alfred Meth

Alfred Meth was born on May 24, 1875 in Königshütte.he was married to Flora, née Appel,born on July 25, 1879 in Kattowitz.the couple married on March 11, 1901 in Kattowitz. They had four children -  Elfriede,born on December 13, 1901 in Ravensburg - married to Max Friedrich Grünfeld,cantor in Baden-Baden. - Herta, born on June 25, 1903, married in Berlin, lived in Haifa since 1935 - Dorothea, born on November 17, 1904 in Schw. Gmünd, married the Ulm rabbi Julius Cohn in 1933, who also took care of the no longer existing rabbinate of Oberdorf after 1930.After the emigration of her husband and son Ernst to England in 1939, Dorothea Cohn remained in Germany, worked in her profession as a caregiver in the Jewish old people's home in Heilbronn-Sontheim and went to her death with her wards. Born on June 11, 1906, married to Anni Goldschmidt in Hohenbostel, divorced in 1936, emigrated to Cuba, later to Hong Kong and then to Switzerland, where he died on April 15, 1996 in Minusio.Alfred Meth was a businessman.After his marriage, he first worked in Ravensburg before moving to Schwäbisch Gmänd in 1902, where he set up a shop at Bocksgasse 16 selling kitchen and household items, shorts, white goods and woollens.He later expanded his range of goods and founded the first modern department store in Gmünd at Bocksgasse 29, where he also owned the Meth carpet shop. Alfred Meth had the building next to his department store converted into a cinema (Gamundia-Lichtspiele) and was also the managing director/co-owner of the Wohlwert department store in Heidenheim (Einheitspreis-Gesellschaft m.b.H. Alfred Meth, May & Kahn,Schw. Gmünd) and department stores in Ulm and Heilbronn. The seizure of power by the National Socialists with their anti-Jewish policies led to the sale of the business in 1936. The couple moved to Baden Baden and on October 22, 1940, Alfred Meth was deported to Gurs, where he and his wife managed to escape to the USA in 1943.