Eva and Alfons Kempner moved into a 5-room apartment on the second floor of the street-facing building in 1932. Eva Kempner, née Zucker, co-owned the property at Passauer Straße 5 with her three sisters. Her husband, Dr. med. Alfons Eduard Moritz Kempner, was a government medical councillor and physician specializing in internal medicine and nervous diseases. He practised the Protestant faith but was classified as Jewish and persecuted by the Nazis because he had a Jewish wife and a Jewish father. On June 14, 1937, his license to practise as a physician was revoked. Stripped of his doctor title, he was subsequently authorized to treat only Jewish patients. In the early 1940s, the Kempners lived in two rooms of the apartment. The other rooms were occupied by Eva Kempner’s sisters Gertrud, Margarete, and Selma Zucker, who had been forced to move from their homes on the third floor. All the sisters performed forced labor.

For a short time, Alfons Kempner’s brother Dr. Franz Kempner also lived in the apartment. A lawyer by profession, he had been a state official in the Weimar Republic and was now actively involved in resistance against the Nazis. He was arrested following the assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler of July 20, charged with high treason, and executed on March 5, 1945. Alfons and Eva Kempner were deported to Theresienstadt where Alfons Kempner died on November 11, 1942. Eva Kempner was deported further on January 23, 1943, to Auschwitz, where she was murdered. Her sisters Gertrud, Margarete, and Selma were deported in March 1943 to Auschwitz and murdered.

A music student occupied one room of the apartment. His name was Heinz Martin Hagelberg and he played clarinet and saxophone. He had lived with his relatives Georg and Helene Rosenstock at Yorckstraße 60 before being allocated compulsory accommodation at Passauer Straße 5. On June 26, 1942, Heinz Hagelberg was deported to Maly Trostinez near Minsk, where he was murdered.

Alfred Lichtenstaedt held the lease on the apartment on the fourth floor of the street-facing building but did not live there. The Lichtenstaedts were related to the Kempner family. Though classified as Jewish and persecuted, Alfred Lichtenstaedt and his wife survived the Nazi regime.

In 1939 the Lichtenstaedts sublet a partly furnished room in the apartment to husband-and-wife Minna and Siegbert Salomon Just. They had previously lived at Neue Bayreuther Straße 3. They managed to save their daughter Gerda Lisalotta by sending her to the United Kingdom on a kindertransport. Minna Just was made to perform forced labor for Siemens-Schuckertwerke AG in Berlin-Siemensstadt. Siegbert Just was a forced laborer for Schmidt & Co. GmbH in Wedding. In early March 1943, they were separated by the Gestapo and deported on two different transports to Auschwitz, where they were murdered. The Nazi state sold their furniture and clothing for RM 1,024.20.

Gerhard Priebatsch, born on December 9, 1922, was another temporary subtenant in the apartment. He had lived with his parents Dr. Walter Priebatsch and Rosa Priebatsch, née Kassel, on Potsdamer Straße until their deportation in October 1942. On March 6, 1943, Gerhard Priebatsch was deported to Auschwitz, where he was murdered.

Stefanie Kolodzinsky also lived in Alfred Lichtenstaedt’s apartment for a time. She had lived with her mother Margarethe Kolodzinsky, née Kirstein, on the second floor of the rear building at Babelsberger Straße 47 until Margarethe’s death on September 22, 1940. 16-year-old Stefanie was then allocated housing at Passauer Straße 5. Like Minna Just, she was made to perform forced labor for Siemens-Schuckert, Gartenfeld. On January 21, 1944, Stefanie Kolodzinsky was deported to Theresienstadt. From there she was deported on October 19, 1944, to Auschwitz, where she was murdered.

Another room was occupied by Siegfried Rehbock, until he was deported on March 3, 1943, to Auschwitz-Birkenau. His sister Martha Westheimer, née Rehbock, managed to escape with her husband Alexander and son Horst to the United States.

Records show that a neighbor of the Kempners’ asked to purchase their furnishings after their deportation. But there were other interested parties, including an SS Untersturmführer from Zehlendorf. A dispute ensued over who obtained which items of the “Kempner Jew furniture” – as the couple’s belongings were then disdainfully described.

The permanent exhibition „Wir waren Nachbarn“ in Rathaus Schöneberg offers more insights into everyday Jewish life in the Tempelhof-Schöneberg district.