Production

Leopold Erlenbach was born in Fürth on November 13, 1831. His parents were Seligmann Ellern-Erlenbach and Marianne Ellern-Erlenbach,née Baburger. Leopold Erlenbach learned gold beating, became a master gold beater and founded his own company in 1854. In 1928, the Leopold Erlenbach company was granted a patent for the production of especially durable gold leaf made of a platinum-gold alloy. In 1927, Ella Erlenbach was the owner of the Leopold Erlenbach company.

Before Georg Levy founded his own company in 1920 (trademarks "GL" and "Gely", - composed of the first letters of his name), he was a partner in the company of Hubert Kienberger (trademark  "Huki"). The owners of the company were Alfred and Kurt Levy and Peter Moritz Goldschmidt. The owner of the house, engineer Georg Levy, lived at Frommanstrasse 8. The range of goods included a large assortment of tin toys such as cars, motorcycles, airplanes, ships, tin figures of various kinds as well as tin trains.

Although it is not an original "Jüdische place", the orphanage printing house is nevertheless important for the Jüdische history of Hanau. It stands in the direct tradition of the two "oriental printing houses". The typefaces and types of the Typographia Orientalis by Bashuysen were transferred to this printing house via several changes of ownership, in which Hebrew works were still occasionally printed.

The old Hebrew types of the predecessor printing house were used for the last time in the Orphanage Printing House in 1797.

In 1708, Heinrich Jakob Bashuysen, preacher of the Dutch congregation in Hanau and professor of oriental languages and church historyat the Hohe Landesschule in Hanau, established a new Oriental printing house. He used this printing house mainly to publish his own publications in the field of Oriental studies. This luminary in the field of Oriental studies initially worked closely with Jewish printers. However, he fell out with them. The dispute went all the way to the Reichshofrat in Vienna, where the files are still stored today.

In the 17th century, there was a prohibition in Frankfurt am Main according to which Jews were not allowed to own or run their own printing shops. Since there was nevertheless brisk trade in Hebrew books at Frankfurt fairs, Jewish printers either had to resort to other, Christian printing houses in Frankfurt, or move to surrounding cities where there was no prohibition of this kind. One of these "alternative cities" was Hanau.

In the address book of the city of Munich of 1905 find the following entries - Hirsch Samuel ( Meyer & Hirsch ) factory owner, Bereiteranger 15/0 Tel.241, - Hirsch Sarah, Fabrikantens.- widow      ( Fa.Meyer & Hirsch ) Bereiteranger 15/2  Tel.241

In the 1860s, twine manufacturer Wilhelm (Wolf) Chotzen (1829-1913) built a twine factory on the site. His son Otto Chotzen (1864-1950) took it over in the 1890s and converted it into a wooden bung factory. Adjacent to the company premises, the Chotzen family lived in a villa.