Auguste Lichtenstein was born into a Jewish family in Posen on September 2, 1861. She married the merchant Jakob Rehfeld, and their daughter Gertrud was born in Berlin on May 5, 1891. The family lived in Kreuzberg, Lankwitzstraße 5 when in 1913 the daughter Gertrud married the merchant Hermann Goldschmidt.

Martha Heilborn was born in Klein - Zabrze (Upper Silesia) on August 17, 1877, the daughter of Salomon Heilborn and his wife Marie, née Richter. She married the merchant Otto Rechnitz in 1899 and moved with him to Kottbus.