From February 1942 on, Charlotte Hoffmann was made to perform forced labor for Krause in Reinickendorf. On February 27, 1943, the day of the Nazis' "Factory Action", she was taken from her workplace probably to the Markthalle III grocery market at Mauerstraße 82. She was released because of her earlier "privileged marriage" with a non-Jew and her son Gerhard's status as a person "of mixed race, first degree".

In March 1944, Charlotte Hoffmann was arrested by the Gestapo on Albrecht-Achilles-Straße, where she was visiting a Jewish acquaintance she helped while he was in hiding, a certain Herr Rachmann. She and her son Gerhard were taken to the Schulstraße assembly camp, from where Charlotte Hoffmann was sent to Fehrbellin corrective labor camp. After 15 weeks in the labor camp, she was sent to the Große Hamburger Straße assembly camp. From there she was sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp. She was then sent on a "Polish transport" to the subcamps Helmstedt-Beendorf, Hamburg-Langenhorn, and Hamburg-Eidelstedt. In May/June 1945 she was released from a forced labor camp in Hamburg-Bahrenfeld. Eleven-year-old Gerhard was cared for by her friends Wilhelm and Anna Nuthmann in their home at Apostel-Paulus-Straße 40 while she was imprisoned. Charlotte Hoffmann returned to Berlin in September 1945.

One room in the apartment was sublet to Erich Waldbaum, who performed forced labor for Rudolf & Pietsch at Lützowstraße 38. It is not clear when he moved in at Kleiststraße 36; in May 1939, he lived at Akazienstraße 3. On February 1, 1943, all his assets were seized by the secret state police (Gestapo). He paid a last monthly rent for the furnished room on February 28, 1943, and was deported a few days later, on March 3, 1943, to Auschwitz. His private belongings were considered worthless and not cleared out. Today, a stumbling stone outside Akazienstraße 3 commemorates Erich Waldbaum.

In August 1941, Oskar Hollaender, a widowed trader, moved into another furnished room in the apartment. His wife Fryderyka Ukrainczyk had died on December 25, 1933, in their home at Martin-Luther-Straße 42. They did not have any children. Oskar Hollaender last worked as a forced laborer for the Neukölln-Mittenwald railroad. Just a few months after he moved in, on November 27, 1941, he was deported to the Riga ghetto, where he was murdered on arrival.

In January 1942, Katharina Carsch, née Wohlgemuth, also moved into a furnished room in Charlotte Hoffmann's apartment. She had lived alone since she and her second husband Salli Carsch had divorced in 1932. In her declaration of assets of January 27, 1943, she stated that she had no cash, no credit, and no securities. But she claimed to co-own the residential building at Ludendorffstraße 40 with her sister Gertrud Charlotte Van Vlymen, who was ten years younger. Katharina Carsch was deported on February 3, 1943, to Auschwitz and murdered a short time later.

Markus and Maria (Marja) Aszkenazy, née Reissmann, moved into a 3-room apartment with a kitchen, bathroom, and pantry in 1936. Their apartment had hot running water and was heated by stove. The Aszkenazys are only listed as resident at Kleiststraße 36 in the Berlin directories of 1940 and 1941. Markus Aszkenazy fled on October 10, 1938, to Argentina. Maria Aszkenazy stayed with her sons Manfred and Erwin in the apartment. She was a sales assistant and probably worked as a forced laborer for Siemens & Halske AG, in the Wernerwerk F department. On January 1, 1942, all Maria Aszkenazy's and her children's assets were seized for the benefit of the German Reich. On January 12, 1943, Erwin and Manfred and their mother were deported to Auschwitz. The apartment was cleared on April 19, 1943.

Rose Mendelsohn, née Müller, and her daughter from her first marriage, Lilli Henoch, moved into one room of the apartment on May 21, 1941. They paid Maria Aszkenazy a monthly rent of RM 50 until August 1942. They had previously lived for many years with Rose's late husband and Lilli's stepfather, Mendel Mendelsohn, in a 6-room apartment at Haberlandstraße 11. In 1938, the year Mendel Mendelsohn died, this street was renamed Treuchtlinger Straße, erasing the reference to the Jewish entrepreneur and city councillor it had been named after. Rose Mendelsohn and Lilli Henoch were deported on September 5, 1942, to the Riga ghetto and murdered.

Julian Reissmann, a trader, took the lease on a 3rd-floor apartment at Kleiststraße 36 some time before May 1939; he is listed as resident at that address in the Berlin directory of 1939. He was a brother of Maria Aszkenazy, who lived with her children on the same floor. Julian Reissmann's name appears on a list of October 1941 of Jewish people who were shot in the village Zasovica near Schabac, Yugoslavia. Alongside his name is that of Frau Elsa Reissmann, born June 4, 1914. She was probably his wife. It is likely the Reissmanns had tried to reach Palestine overland and been stranded in Yugoslavia.

Emil and Martha Galliner, née Salzmann, lived with their son Heinz in Julian Reissmann's apartment. Emil and Martha had married in Berlin in August 1909 and set up a department store, Galliner, in Finsterwalde, Brandenburg. Emil and Heinz Galliner were abducted during the November pogrom of 1938 and taken to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Martha was placed under house arrest in Finsterwalde. On her release on November 10, 1938, she left for Berlin and rented a room from Julian Reissmann. Emil was released on December 14, 1938, and joined Martha. Heinz Galliner was released from Sachsenhausen concentration camp on December 29, 1938, after his uncle, the rabbi Siegfried Galliner, had secured him a scholarship in the United States. He started out for the United Kingdom on April 3, 1939, but was prevented from traveling on to the United States as the US immigrant quota had been reached. Emil and Martha Galliner were forced to sell everything they owned and left Germany. They took the Transsiberian Railroad and reached Shanghai, China, on June 12, 1941. They survived the war in the Shanghai ghetto and finally reached Johannisburg, South Africa, in 1956.

The main tenant of this apartment was Maria Reicher, née Dusek. A Catholic, she was the widow of Wilhelm Reicher, who converted form Judaism to Catholicism shortly before their marriage in 1903. Wilhelm Reicher died in 1934 in Zitternberg near Vienna. From 1938 on, Maria Reicher was listed in the Berlin directory as a woman of independent means, resident at Kleiststraße 36.

Maria Reicher sublet a room to Felix Neftel – for 15 marks per month. He was separated from his wife Irma Maria (maiden name unknown) and their son Hans Franz. He is listed in the Berlin telephone book of 1938 under the number 27 43 64, address Kleiststraße 36. He probably worked in trade. The name Felix Neftel does not appear on any deportation list. While the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Berlin (Deportations) holds a file card on him, it remains unclear whether he committed suicide or survived. His property, which consisted only of a few pieces of clothing, was seized on October 12, 1942. The room was cleared on April 17, 1943.

Until 1933/34, the neighborhood was a known as a center of gay and lesbian life. Kleist-Kasino at Kleiststraße 15 was a bar for homosexuals that opened in 1921. When it was closed on March 3, 1933, SA leader Ernst Röhm filed a complaint with Adolf Hitler and the bar reopened. The lodge house of the German-Jewish welfare organization B’nai B’rith was at Kleiststraße 10 until its closure by the Nazis. The Theater am Nollendorfplatz was just a short walk away from Kleiststraße 36, but it was out of reach for the Jewish residents. On November 12, 1938, a law came into force banning Jewish people from visiting theaters, cinemas, concerts and exhibitions.