Born on November 11, 1906 in Görlitz, she grew up as the daughter of factory owner Ernst Hamburger and his wife Clara Zipora. Ruth had two brothers, Fritz and Rudolph. Her father died early and her older brother Fritz fell in the First World War in 1914. From then on, Ruth lived with her niece Eva, Fritz's daughter, whose mother was not a teenager. In 1930, the family moved to Fürstenberg/Havel, where Ruth's mother bought a villa and converted it into a guesthouse. Ruth and her niece Eva lived there and most of the guests were young.

Wilhelm Kann was born into a well-known Jewish banking family in 1880 and exerted a considerable influence on Jewish life in Potsdam during his varied life.

His grandfather of the same name opened the W. Kann banking house at Nauener Strasse 32 (now Friedrich-Ebert-Strasse 113) in 1842, after moving to Potsdam from Eberswalde with his family, wife and three children in 1840. The shop was located opposite the old synagogue and the Jewish community center.

The German-Israelitic Community Association (DIGB) in Steglitzer Strasse in Berlin founded a home for feeble-minded but educated children in 1907 to mark the silver wedding anniversary of the imperial couple. A new foundation was established for this purpose, the Wilhelm-Auguste-Victoria Foundation. The special thing about this home was that it was the only school that took in physically disabled Jewish children. Sally (Samuel) Bein was appointed head of the school. The Potsdam Department for Church and Education approved the home and school for 20 children on September 5, 1908.

On July 30, 1873, Alfred Guttmann was born in Posen (now Poznań, PL). His parents were the merchant Albrecht Guttmann (1845–1919) and Ernestine Guttmann, née Haenisch. After leaving school, he studied medicine and singing from 1894–1898 and received his doctorate from Berlin University in 1898. Alfred Guttmann also studied psychology and musicology in Berlin from 1901. After volunteering for the First World War, he worked as a front-line doctor for three and a half years. He not only practiced medicine, but also appeared as a concert performer from 1894.

The Old Synagogue in Potsdam was built between 1900 and 1903 according to plans by Otto Kerwien and was consecrated on June 17, 1903. It was destroyed during the Second World War and demolished in the 1950s.

The construction of the new synagogue in Potsdam is a controversial topic. It is about erecting a religious building in a historical and political metropolis. The challenges of reviving Jewish life in Germany become clear through these discussions, and in 2012 the plan was concretized and the state government made a plot of land in the city center available. Several architectural competitions were held. The synagogue was to have not only a religious, but also a cultural center. However, the first designs met with resistance.

Walter Johann Guttsmann was born in Berlin on 8 May 1880.

The Judengraben is a very important project built by King Frederick II at the end of the 18th century. The ditch was intended to transport felled tree trunks from the Potsdam and Templin forests towards the city canal. It was built so that the logs would not have to be transported by water past the island of Hermannswerder. So this ditch has nothing to do with the Nazi era, it takes its name from the „court Jew“ Daniel Itzig. Itzig was born on March 18, 1723 and died on May 21, 1799. He was active at the royal court as a merchant and received a great deal of recognition as a result.

There had been a synagogue in Fürstenberg/Havel since the 18th century. The first evidence of prayers in Fürstenberg dates back to 1764. In the same year, the Jewish community began to ask the duke for permission to buy a house due to increasing membership numbers. They received permission on May 28, 1777, and after 11 years the synagogue was put on record as the purchased house was in need of repair due to water damage. In 1788, a new synagogue was built on a plot of land in the western part of the town.

The Ziegler family

Heinrich Ziegler, born in 1884, was an important Jewish doctor. He worked at the maternity clinic and as a school doctor. However, after the National Socialists came to power in 1933, he lost these public positions because of his Jewish origins, even though he had served in the First World War. This dismissal was part of the systematic discrimination and exclusion of Jewish citizens by the Nazi regime. From then on, Ziegler was only able to treat private patients, which severely limited his professional opportunities.