Lucie Mokrauer née Cohn

Location 
An der Spandauer Brücke 1 b
District
Mitte
Stone was laid
03 September 2018
Born
15 August 1881 in Berlin
Deportation
on 20 July 1942
Later deported
on 19 September 1942 to Treblinka
Murdered
in Treblinka

Alfred Mokrauer was born on 26 April 1876 in Kattowitz, Silesia (today Poland). He had eight brothers and sisters. His father ,Julius, owned a soda factory in Kattowitz.  Alfred moved to Berlin as a young man just after the turn of the century. There he met and married Lucie Cohn (born 15 August 1881 in Berlin). Their first child, Siegfried Simon, was born in 1906, their second son, Albert Abraham, in 1909, followed by their daughter, Lony, in 1914.

Several other members of Alfred’s family also lived in Berlin, including two sisters, Wally (born 1873) and Irma Natalie, our grandmother (born 1887) who also left Silesia to find work in Berlin.Their parents, Julius and Agnes, eventually retired to Berlin as well.

The Mokrauer family lived in 1b An der Spandauer Brücke, close to the Old Synagogue in the Heidereuther Gasse and a popular market (the Hackescher Markt). Perhaps their successful business started as a stand on the market. By 1920 they had three businesses which they registered with the authorities. Two of their shops, a stationer‘s and a shop selling toys and haberdashery, were on the ground floor of the house in which they lived. The third shop, where toys and stationery were sold, was on the nearby Neue Friedrichstraße, known today as Anna-Louise-Karsch-Straße. All the family members and several shop assistants earned a good living until the late 1930s.

The first member of the family to leave the country was Albert, who left for Shanghai before 1939, followed by Lony, who emigrated to England.

„After Crystal night, Albert Mokrauer spent his days on the public transport of Berlin as did many other Jews. He travelled from morning until night on the trams, the underground, buses and city railways to escape the raids and only returned home when it was dark. The he bought a ticket to travel to Shanghai to get out of Germany. „*

„My dad tried so hard to get my grandparents to leave Berlin while it was still possible to do so, but they insisted that the Germans would not ‚bother with the old people’“**

Alfred Mokrauer was forced to close his businesses in 1940.

Alfred and Lucie Mokrauer were deported to Theresienstadt on 20 July 1942 and were murdered two months later on 19 September,1942 in the extinction camp Treblinka.

Three weeks after his parents were deported to Theresienstadt, their eldest son Siegfried Simon was deported to Riga, where he was shot on arrival on 18 August 1942 in the surrounding forests. With this transport there was never any intention to leave anyone in the ghetto. They were buried in mass graves although the luggage was however bought back into the ghetto.

 

 

 

 

References:

Theresienstaedter Gedenkbuch and Residentenliste

**Marion Goldstein –  grand-daughter of Alfred and LucyMokrauer

*Gerda Schmidt- Loewy – niece of Alfred and Lucy Mokrauer