Max Gabriel Berlowitz

Michael Reik, Enkelsohn von Max und Bianca Berlowitz, der in Adelaide in England lebt, hielt nach Verlegung der Stolpersteine zum Gedenken an seine Großeltern diese Ansprache:

With my sister Miriam , wife Gillian, and daughters Jonelle and Caroline we are assembled with the Magen Family as a result of a telephone call I received from Menachem to join in the ceremonies here in Berlin, an event we were only too pleased to be part of.

We are here today to remember Max and Bianca Berlowitz who lived here at 23 Prinzregentenstrasse and were brutally taken away to Theresienstadt on March 17th1943.

Max and Bianca arranged for their daughters Ruth and Eva to leave for England in early 1939.

Max my grandfather, was never known to me but before he was murdered in Auschwitz, together with Bianca, knew that I had been born in England the first of the grandchildren.

Max was born in Schmalleningken in Lithuania the eldest of five siblings (the other four girls Berta, Jenny, Paula and Lucie) in May 1879.

Records show that his father Chaim, grandfather David and great grandfather Pincas also lived in Schmalleningken. Pincas and his father Behr were born in Schillehnen, a small village, a short ferry ride from Schmalleningken with family records going back to 1739.

Max married Bianca Wollenberg who was born in Schwetz in Western Prussia, Germany (became Swiecie in Poland) and they lived later in Allenstein in Eastern Prussia (now Olsztyn in Poland) where Max was a successful business man in a partnership of a large department store.

Max was taken from Theresienstadt on the 23rd of October 1944 on the last but one train out to Auschwitz, where he was murdered.

Bianca, known to us, the grandchildren, always as Omi, was the eldest of three siblings, the others Leo and Else. The parents Samuel Wollenberg and Paula (nee Feibel) and the grandparents, Louis and Sara, all lived in Schwetz.

Bianca and Max moved to Berlin after 1936 as they believed it was safer there, once the Nazi regime was in power and were living at Prinzregentenstrasse by the 22nd June 1942.

Omi survived the Concentration Camp because of her skills as a gardener and as a nurse and came to live with us in England. She lived for thirty years in our house with Ruth, Hans, Miriam and I, and became the matriarch of the family in charge of the kitchen.

The language spoken at home by my parents was mainly English but between Omi and my mother Ruth was invariably German. In fact with Omi tutoring me in German I managed to pass my O’Level- Matriculation in the one year. My father Hans was quite content with the situation, and Omi would always also be with us on our holidays.

Omi is buried in the Jewish Cemetery next to the grave of my parents close to the Jewish Neighbourhood of Golders Green and I visited her only two weeks ago. Max is already named on Omi’s Headstone. However the laying of these two Stolpersteine enable Max and Bianca to finally be in a resting place together.