Josef David Wolf

Location 
Elberfelder Straße 29
District
Tiergarten
Stone was laid
04 June 2022
Born
31 August 1882 in Mayen (Rheinprovinz)
Occupation
Besitzer von Schuhgeschäften, Fabrikant
Escape
1938 Belgien
Deportation
on 10 May 1940 to St. Cyprien, Südfrankreich
Death due to incarceration and torture
15 June 1943 in Ixelles, Belgien

Josef David Wolf was born on August 31, 1882 in Mayen, Rhine Province (today Rhineland-Palatinate). His parents were the merchant Sigmund Wolf and Rosina Wolf, née Marx.

In 1912, Josef married Lina Feldmann in Saarwellingen, Rhine Province. He had met Lina in a photo store in Frankfurt am Main, where the young woman was the manager. At the time of their marriage, Josef David was 30 years old and Lina 26.
The couple moved to Trier, where they started a family and built a livelihood. Lina gave birth to three children, Elly Regina (1914), Ingeborg (1916) and son Leo (1924). Little Elly Regina died when she was 20 months old. 

Josef David and Lina founded the company "Schuhhaus Wolf" in Trier with two branches in a prime location very close to the Porta Westfalica. Many years later, in April 1933, Josef David Wolf founded another shoe store called "Chasalla" in Cologne, in the distinguished shopping street Hohestraße not far from Cologne Cathedral. 

After more than 20 years of marriage, Josef separated from his wife Lina and their children and moved to Cologne. In the years that followed, he bought a ceramics factory with production facilities in Bonn and Cologne, but soon had to sell it at a knockdown price dictated by the Nazis.
With Hitler's seizure of power and the call for a boycott of Jewish businesses on April 1, 1933, the targeted dismantling of Jewish businesses also began in Trier, a process that was further intensified by the "Nuremberg Laws" of September 15, 1935.  In 1936, Josef and Lina sold the two shoe stores in Trier and Lina Wolf also moved to Cologne with their children Ingeborg and Leo.

In the Reich Pogrom Night in November 1938, Wolf's shoe store "Chasalla" in Cologne was completely destroyed. Josef David Wolf had to flee. He fled on foot with his new partner Marguerite Margolinski across the border near Aachen to Belgium. In Brussels, Josef Wolf applied for a temporary residence permit for himself and his partner. The actual destination of Josef and Marguerite, however, was Holland, but they did not continue their journey. 

Despite his flight, Josef was apparently not destitute. When asked by the Belgian immigration authorities on his arrival in Brussels whether he had any assets, he replied "factories". He also hired a lawyer to assist him in his application for a residence permit. The couple lived first in Brussels, then from October 1940 in Ixelles, a posh town near Brussels (now a Brussels neighborhood). Josef managed to obtain a permanent residence permit for them both.

In May 1940, Josef Wolf was deported to the St. Cyprien concentration camp in southern France.  Since Josef Wolf's move to Ixelles, Belgium, rue Jean d'Ardenne 19 is officially certified for October 1, 1940, it can be assumed that Josef Wolf was able to escape from the concentration camp and returned to Brussels.  

From June 1941 on, Josef Wolf had to repeatedly go to a hospital for treatment, possibly a consequence of his imprisonment in St. Cyprien and his escape. At last he was admitted to the hospital Hôpital Civil d' Ixelles. He died there two months later on June 15, 1943.