Leonische Waren - Jacob Gilardi - ( Geiershoefer family)

The beginnings of the Jacob Gilardi company date back to 1689, when the Allersberg mayor Johann Georg Heckel d.Ä. built a wire-drawing mill next to his Adler estate on the market square, which was later passed on to his son Johann Georg Heckel and his wife Sybilla, née Maurer.After his early death, Giacomo (Jacob) Gilardi married the widow and continued to run the business with great success.Descendants of the Gilardis, the Siegert family, continued to run the business until insolvency in 1892.In 1894, Anton Geiershoefer and Johann Martin Winterbauer acquired the business.In 1894 /95 Winterbauer transferred his share to Anton Geiershoefer. In 1901 the company was extensively rebuilt and the technology modernized. On June 10, 1902, Otto Geiershoefer married Else Amalie Kann, born in Nuremberg on November 9, 1879, daughter of the Jewish couple Mayer and Pauline Kann, née Dreyfuss. Otto Geiershoefer, who also came from a Jewish family, converted to the Evangelical-Lutheran denomination shortly before the wedding. In 1904, Otto Geiershoefer took over the company from his brother Anton and became the sole owner of the company. When Otto Geiershoefer died on March 11, 1936, the company passed into the ownership of his widow Else, and his son Erik became managing director.Else Geiershoefer only converted on June 28, 1936, when she was already a widow. Erik Geiershoefer fled to England with his wife Magda and daughter Susanne, while his brother Herbert and his wife Rita spent the war abroad and later lived in Uganda. His mother Else Geiershoefer, who stayed behind, was transported to the Lodz ghetto on October 25, 1941 and died there on October 22, 1942  A stumbling block in Hamburg commemorates her.