Erna Lichtenstein (1905-c.1944)

Erna Lichtenstein was born 18 Apr 1905 in Jülich, Germany, eldest daughter of Max Lichtenstein and Regina Schwartz. She is my husband’s second cousin once removed.

Lichtenstein Butcher shop.
It is not clear, who is who

Max and Regina’s first child (a son) had died young, and they had two more daughters (Sophie and Leni) and a son (Ernst) after Erna. They had a butcher store in Jülich at Düsseldorferstr. 11. This store still exists (now at #13), but the present owners (Schagen) conveniently forget that they basically stole the store from the Lichtensteins, when the persecutions started.

Erna married in 1929, but was divorced two years later. Her father died in 1939, and is buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Jülich.

Regina was in 1942 deported to Theresienstadt, and died there, Erna and Leni were also murdered in concentration camps. Ernst went to Amsterdam, but was deported in 1944 to Westerbork, and killed in Tsechowitz (Poland); Sophie and her husband Max Baum moved to Limburg in 1938, but they were betrayed and were sent to Auschwitz. Only Sophie would survive. She later gave testimony about the experiments that were conducted on the prisoners.(1)

The family is listed on the Jewish War Memorial in Jülich.

(1) Klee, Ernst. Auschwitz – Täter, Gehilfen, Opfer und was aus ihnen wurde: Ein Personenlexikon. FISCHER E-Books, 2013. Available through Google Books

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