The entrance on Zehdenicker Straße leads to four floors with two apartments on each: an expansive, stucco-decorated 3-room apartment with a maid’s chamber, large kitchen, and generous hallway on the left; and a smaller 3-room apartment on the right.

Theodor Jüttner, a shoemaker, and his wife Paula moved into the store premises on the first floor in February 1939. Their adult daughters Senta and Hanna and their husbands Rudi Neufeld and Heinz Josel lived with them. On June 13, 1942, baby Gittel was born to Hanna and Heinz Josel. As well as the central salesroom, the premises had two adjoining rooms, which were used as bedrooms, and a kitchen. All six adult family members were made to perform forced labor for different businesses. The entire family was deported on January 29, 1943, to Auschwitz and murdered.

Josef Weisskirch, a businessman, and his wife Fanny, moved into the large 3-room apartment on the 2nd floor with their sons Max and Heinrich in 1934. The Weisskirch family originally came from Poland. Fanny Weisskirch’s mother Chaja Gottselig also lived in the apartment. Max and Heinrich managed to emigrate to Palestine. Josef Weisskirch and his mother-in-law Chaja Gottselig were deported in January 1943 to Auschwitz and murdered. It is not known what happened to Fanny Weisskirch.

Husband-and-wife Moses und Hadossa Rück moved in to one room as subtenants on April 1, 1941. Just eight months later, they were deported to Riga and shot upon arrival in the Rumbula forest. In late 1941, Feiga Kampf, who also came from Poland, moved into the maid’s chamber. She was deported about a year later, on December 14, 1942. Lajbus and Rivka Zalcmann moved into one of the large rooms with their five-month-old baby in May 1942. They lived there until they were deported with many other occupants of the building in January 1943 to Auschwitz.

Heimann Hirsch lived in the apartment above the Weißkirch family with his adult sons Hans and Rudi. They had moved in sometime after 1932. Heimann Hirsch was deported on November 17, 1941, to the Kovno ghetto and murdered. Hans Hirsch subsequently moved to Neuruppin. Nothing is known about his later whereabouts, or those of this brother.

In November 1941, Resi and Adolf Weinberg and their seven-year-old son Wolf moved into one room of the apartment as subtenants. They had come to Berlin from Jever in March 1940, following a Gestapo operation to expel Jewish people from East Frisia. They had initially been allocated compulsory housing at Weißenburger Straße 13 (now Kollwitzstraße) in Prenzlauer Berg and moved from there to Zehdenicker Straße. Adolf Weinberg was made to perform forced labor for the municipal garbage removal service. The Weinberg family was deported to Auschwitz at the end of January 1943.

By 1942, Irmgard and Hans Zlotnitzki had also moved in to the apartment. They were deported on February 26, 1943, to Auschwitz, after being held for about four weeks in the assembly camp on Große Hamburger Straße.

In July 1942, Benno and Else Sieburth took over the tenancy of the small 3-room apartment on the fourth floor. They had previously lived for many years on Pasteurstraße in Prenzlauer Berg. Their adult son, Peter Sieburth, lived in the Hakhshara camp on the farm at Neuendorf im Sande, where he was preparing to emigrate to Palestine. In March 1938, Benno Sieburth had come to the attention of the Gestapo as he was working as a travelling salesman in the area around Berlin and Jewish people were banned from market trading.

Some two years before the Sieburths moved in, in August 1940, husband-and-wife Leo and Selma Lewinsky had moved into the apartment as subtenants. On February 11, 1941, their daughter Rachel was born. Another subtenant in the apartment was the 63-year-old widow Johanna Katz. No record exists of when she moved in.

The Gestapo deported Benno and Else Sieburth on January 12, 1943, more than two weeks before their subtenants, to Auschwitz. The Sieburths had already been forced to witness the deportation of Charlotte Grünberg, Else Sieburth’s unmarried sister, who had also lived with them, in September 1942.

Nothing is known of the fate of the previous tenants, the four members of the Kajet family. It is likely that Georg and Margot Israelski took over the tenancy of the apartment from them but it is not clear exactly when.

Margot Israelski was made to perform forced labor for Siemens in Spandau. A sales representative by profession, Georg Israelski performed forced labor from 1939 on. He was arrested by the Gestapo in retaliation for a bomb attack by a Communist-Jewish resistance group on May 27, 1942, and taken to the assembly camp in the synagogue on Levetzowstraße. He and 153 other men were subjected to a show trial, taken to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, and shot. A few weeks later, on June 19, 1942, his wife Margot Israelski was deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto. She was the only survivor of the 29 people known to have been deported from this address. After 1945 she emigrated to the United States.

Only four of the eleven residential units in the building were used as forced homes. The other apartments were rented out on a regular basis. One of the building’s long-term tenants was Frieda Loth, who lived on the Gormannstraße side and worked as the concierge for both parts of the building. She took the keys to apartments used as forced homes after they had been vacated and the occupants deported. She also assisted the court appointed receiver who evaluated the property that the deportees left behind, not only accompanying him but also helping him to assess the value of items and identify their original owners.