Feodor (Fedor) Simson, a butcher, and his wife Rosa took the lease on a 1-room apartment on the first floor in 1938/39. They had previously lived at Innsbrucker Straße 42. The young couple seem to have shared the small apartment from the outset with Feodor Simson’s mother, Henriette Simson. She had come to Berlin with her sons Feodor and Gustav after the death of her husband in 1922. After they moved to Skalitzer Straße 20, Feodor Simson was no longer listed in the Berlin directory as a butcher, but as an “underground construction worker”. That suggests he was forced to give up his profession to perform heavy manual labor.

In February 1940, Hildegard Wolff, a sister of Feodor Simson, moved into the apartment with her son Sally. They had been expelled from Aurich in East Frisia. Sally’s father Ludwig Wolff managed to escape with their daughter Helga to the United Kingdom in 1939. Hildegard Wolff and her son Sally were not able to join them. Now there were five people living in the 1-room apartment. Hildegard Wolff was made to perform forced labor for Siemens-Schuckert in Gartenfeld. Sally was active in the Jewish Community as a “young helper”. Where Feodor Simson and his wife were made to work is not documented.

Feodor Simson and his wife Rosa were the first to be deported: They were sent on February 19, 1943, along with many other residents of the building, to Auschwitz. Henriette Simson and her grandson Sally Wolff followed, on March 1, 1943. Hildegard Wolff was deported on March 12, 1943, to Auschwitz. None of them returned. Ludwig Wolff, Hildegard’s husband, later emigrated with his daughter Helga to the United States, where he died in 1971. Stumbling stones laid in Mettmann and Aurich commemorate the Simson and Wolff families.

Husband-and-wife Moritz and Siddy Moses came to Berlin from the province of Posen with their three children Resi, Dagobert and Hildegard after the First World War. In 1923 they bought the tenement building at Skalitzer Straße 20 and moved into a 4-room apartment on the second floor. Moritz Moses died two years later.

Their son Dagobert, who had been paralyzed since childhood, ran a cigar store in the street-facing building in the 1930s. In November 1938, his store was raided and wrecked. The Moses’ daughter Hildegard became a photographer. In May 1939, Hildegard and her husband Max Machol emigrated to Ecuador, where their son Herbert was born. Hildegard’s sister Resi died in hospital in Berlin in 1941 after a long illness. Around the same time, Siddy Moses was expropriated. She was forced to sublet rooms in her apartment to three families.

Among the subtenants in the Moses’ apartment was the married couple Arthur and Else Klein, née Studinski. Arthur Klein was a druggist. In May 1939, his wife probably worked in the Jewish home for the elderly on Grabenstraße in Lichterfelde-Ost. They lived at Skalitzer Straße 20 until late October 1942, when they went underground. They stayed in hiding in a small house in Berlin-Rahnsdorf until the end of the war. In 1946, Arthur and Else Klein moved to the United States but later returned to Berlin.

Husband-and-wife Hermann und Else Jacks, née Silbersohn, also lived in Siddy Moses’ apartment as subtenants, together with their daughter Edith and her husband Jack Link. The family seem to have lived there when Hermann Jacks died, on July 29, 1939, in the Jewish hospital in Berlin. Else Jacks, Edith Link, and Jack Link were deported on November 1, 1941, to the Łódź ghetto. On May 13, 1942, they were deported further to Chelmno extermination camp and murdered.

Joachim and Betty Simon were the third couple to occupy a room in the apartment. Betty Simon was a seamstress. She married Joachim in January 1942. About a year later, Joachim and Betty Simon were deported on the same transport as their landlady Siddy Moses and her son Dagobert to Auschwitz, where they were murdered.

The Ascher family held the lease on their 4-room apartment on the fourth floor of the street-facing building. Moritz Ascher is first listed in the Berlin directory in 1911 – as the owner of a leather goods store in the basement at Kurze Straße 8 in Berlin-Mitte, resident with his family at Kaiserstraße 5. He expanded his business over the years and sold it in the early 1920s. Around the same time, he and his family moved to a newly built residential area in Karlshorst, where they bought a house. The Aschers’ daughter Rita Ascher was a commercial clerk and married Erwin Gartenberg, a sales representative, in 1934. Initially, the newly-weds also lived in the house in Karlshorst.

The exact date of the Aschers’ and Gartenbergs’ move from Karlhorst to Skalitzer Straße 20 is not documented. But records show that by May 1939 they were resident in the building. The same year, their previous home in Karlshorst was evidently bought by a certain Frieda Borkowski, who is listed in the Berlin directory as the new owner. In November 1939, the Gartenbergs managed to flee to the United States, leaving Rita’s parents Moritz und Rosa Ascher behind in Berlin. They were made to sublet rooms of their apartment to unknown subtenants.

In spring 1940, husband-and-wife Moritz and Johanna Hoffmann moved into the Aschers’ apartment. They had been expelled in March 1940 from East Frisia. They managed to send their daughter Gerda to safety in the United Kingdom on a kindertransport in 1939. Moritz and Johanna Hoffmann were deported on February 19, 1943, to Auschwitz, where they were murdered.

Moritz Ascher died on January 23, 1942, in Berlin. Rosa Ascher was deported on September 5, 1942, to the Riga ghetto, where she and over 700 others were shot three days after the train arrived.

Another couple, Siegfried and Else Kantorowicz, lived in the Aschers’ apartment at the same time as the Hoffmanns. They moved into a furnished room on November 1, 1941, just a few months after their wedding, on August 25, 1941. They were both made to perform forced labor: Siegfried Kantorowicz, a tradesman, worked as an “auxiliary” for a firm producing building materials near the Teltow canal in Berlin-Lichterfelde. It was certainly heavy, dirty work. Else Kantorowicz worked for Siemens-Schuckert in the Gartenfeld cable-manufacturing plant. Siegfried and Else Kantorowicz were deported on August 15, 1942, to the Riga ghetto and shot in the nearby forest shortly after their arrival on August 18, 1942.

In 1940, husband-and-wife Martin and Martha Joel moved into a 4-room apartment on the fifth floor. They had previously lived at Friedelstraße 37 in Neukölln – just a few doors down from Martin Joel’s textiles store. Martha Joel’s widowed mother Nanni Rolle had lived with them since 1938. She died in May 1941. Martin and Martha Joel were deported together on February 19, 1943, to Auschwitz, where they were murdered.

Another couple, Sally and Fanny Rosenthal, became Martin and Martha Joel’s subtenants. The Rosenthals had married in March 1922. In 1921, Fanny Rosenthal opened an office supplies’ business at Zimmerstraße 48 on the corner of Lindenstraße in Mitte – not far from the Lindenstraße synagogue. In May 1939 they took rooms in an apartment at Immanuelkirchstraße 8 in Prenzlauer Berg, and were later forced to move to Skalitzer Straße 20. Sally Rosenthal died on January 13, 1942, in the Jewish hospital in Berlin. Fanny Rosenthal was deported on September 5, 1942, to Riga, where she was shot three days after arriving.

Käte Schmidt, a divorcée, and her widowed mother Flora Kron, née Liebenwalde, lived on the fourth floor of the right wing, probably from 1940 on. In May 1939, they had both lived as subtenants at Schillingstraße 14 in Friedrichshain. Käte Schmidt held the lease on the small apartment on Skalitzer Straße, which consisted only of one room and a kitchen. Flora Kron was deported on November 19, 1942, to the Theresienstadt ghetto, where she died. Käte Schmidt was made to perform forced labor for Werner Pause KG in Mitte, a company that made ladies’ hats. On March 1, 1943, during the Nazis’ “Factory Action”, she was deported to Auschwitz, where she was murdered.

Husband-and-wife Karl and Käthe Mansbach, née Gutmann, lived in one of the apartments at Skalitzer Straße 20 from 1941 on. They had previously lived in a tenement on Elbinger Straße in Prenzlauer Berg, which Käthe Mansbach and her brother Georg Gutmann had inherited in 1931 from their late father. Käthe’s husband Karl took over her father’s leather goods store. Around 1940, the Mansbachs lost their property and their business and were forced to move into the apartment at Skalitzer Straße 20, which they shared with several subtenants. On March 17, 1943, Karl and Käthe Mansbach were deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto. Karl Mansbach was deported further on September 29, 1944, and Käthe Mansbach on October, 1944, to Auschwitz. Both were murdered.

Among the Mansbachs’ subtenants was Gerhard Felix, an unmarried precision mechanic, who occupied a furnished room. On February 19, 1943, Gerhard Felix was deported to Auschwitz, where he was murdered.

On March 1, 1941, Julius and Margot Guth moved in to another room in the apartment. They had previously lived as subtenants at Jablonskistraße 37. Julius Guth sold leather goods, like Karl Mansbach. It is likely they had known each other before the Guths moved in. While they lived at Skalitzer Straße, Margot Guth performed forced labor for Siemens-Schuckert in Spandau. It is not known where her husband worked. They were both deported on October 29, 1941, to the Łódź ghetto where they were again made to perform forced labor. On May 12, 1942, Julius and Margot Guth were murdered in Chelmno extermination camp.

Husband-and-wife Martin and Gertrud Eisenstädt were also subtenants in the apartment. It is likely they moved into the room formerly occupied by the Guths in May 1942. Martin Eisenstädt was a sales representative. Gertrud Eisenstädt was a seamstress for underwear, which she sold in her own store until she married. Martin and Gertrud Eisenstädt were deported together on February 19, 1943, to Auschwitz, where they were murdered.

Emil and Hildegard Lemberg moved in voluntarily to their apartment at Skalitzer Straße 20. Emil Lemberg is first listed as resident here in the Berlin directory of 1937. He had married Hildegard Budzynski, a bookkeeper, in September 1929. The couple, who remained childless, initially lived at Köpenicker Landstraße 121 in Treptow and opened a lending library. By the time Emil Lemberg lived at Skalitzer Straße 20, he was a forced laborer in Neukölln. He is still listed as resident here in the Berlin directory of 1943 although by that time the Gestapo had imprisoned him in the Großbeeren corrective labor camp, south of Berlin, where he died on April 6, 1943.

Salespeople Sally and Ruth Berlin came to Berlin with their son Horst in the mid-1930s. They had previously lived in Gornitz, where their son Horst was born. Their younger son Denny was born in Berlin. Here, they initially lived with Ruth’s widowed mother Marie Pich at Böckhstraße 47/48. Sally Berlin continued to work in sales. The family were forced to move in to the building at Skalitzer Straße 20 at an unknown point in time; it is not known which apartment or whether they shared it with others. Sally and Ruth Berlin were deported with their sons Horst and Denny on February 19, 1943, to Auschwitz, where they were murdered. In 2017, four stumbling stones were laid for the murdered members of the Berlin family outside the building at Böckhstraße 47/48. Four photographs in the Yad Vashem Hall of Names memorialize the family.

Moritz Bock, an unmarried tradesman, was perhaps an elder brother or cousin of the property owner Siddy Moses. Like her, he was born in Mietschisko (Mieścisko) in the province of Posen. Though relatively old for a soldier, he fought in the First World War. He came to Berlin before the end of the war. Here, he owned a paper wholesale business, “Ernst Rom Nachflg.” at Köpenickerstraße 152. The business was liquidated in 1938. In the mid-1930s he lived at Boxhagener Straße 85 in Lichtenberg. He took a lease on an apartment at Skalitzer Straße 20 in 1937. It is not known where the apartment was or which subtenants lived there. Moritz Bock was deported on April 2, 1942, to the Warsaw ghetto and murdered.

Elise Ehrmann, née Kretschmer, was widowed in 1930. She lived with her adult son Egon, a tradesman. The family had come to Berlin at the beginning of the First World War and opened a stocking store in Schöneberg. The business existed until the early 1930s. For a short time in the mid-1930s, Elise Ehrmann was the owner of a property at Kottbusser Ufer 3 (now Paul-Lincke-Ufer), where she and her son were registered as resident in May 1939. They seem to have moved in to the building at Skalitzer Straße 20 in 1941; it is not known into which apartment or who else lived there. Elise Ehrmann and her son Egon Ehrmann were deported on February 19, 1943, to Auschwitz, where they were murdered.

The Goldsteins moved in to an apartment, probably on the second or third floor, at Skalitzer Straße 20 in 1941. Records do not show whether they held the lease or were subtenants. Markus Goldstein and his wife Flora, née Brotzen, had come to Berlin around 1900. Their daughter Dorothea was born in 1905. Markus Goldstein was a master furrier and ran a fur goods store; his wife did not have an occupation. Dorothea Goldstein became a milliner. The family initially lived at Prenzlauer Allee 236 in Pankow and then in Kreuzberg until the mid- 1930s. The last home they occupied voluntarily was at Maybachufer 8 in Neukölln. In 1937 Dorothea Goldstein emigrated to the United States. Her parents Markus and Flora Goldstein were deported on February 26, 1943, to Auschwitz, where they were murdered.

Emma Eisenberg, an unmarried cashier, moved into a 1-room apartment in 1937. Previously that decade she had moved from Wilmersdorf to Neukölln, where she had lived at Mauritiusstraße 28 and later at Finowstraße 23. She is first listed as resident at Skalitzer Straße 20 in the Berlin directory of 1938 – and for the last time in the directory of 1942. On December 14, 1942, Emma Eisenberg was deported from the Große Hamburger Straße assembly camp to Auschwitz, where she was murdered. Her small apartment was cleared out in March 1943. It is unclear where it was in the building or whether she shared with any subtenants.