What We Know:
Family name: Stein
Given name: Salomon
Date/place of birth: 31 January 1885, Frankfurt, Hesse
Date/place of death: Exact date of death unknown
Age: 57 years old at deportation
Salomon Stein was born on the 31st of January 1885 in Frankfurt am Main, Hesse. He was the son of Jacob (b. 03.11.1851) and Lina (née Kahn, b. 10.01.1855) Stein who had married on 19 May 1882 in Bornheim (Lina’s hometown).
His parents named him after his paternal grandfather, Salomon Stein.
Salomon worked as a plumber while living in Frankfurt. When he moved to Berkach he worked in a grocery store owned by Felix and Rosette Hecht. Felix and Rosette had a daughter, Else Hecht (10.12.1882), whom Salomon married. Else was born in Berkach and had four siblings, Nathan Norbert Hecht (22.10.1869), Edwin Eugen Hecht (01.16.1881), Martha (née Hecht) Merchand (04.18.1889) and Clothilde Hecht (exact birth date unknown). Whether or not Salomon and Else were married prior to Salomon’s move to Berkach is unknown.
On December 23rd 1919, Salomon and Else welcomed their first and only child, Herta Stein, born in the small community of Berkach.
Salomon’s mother Lina (née Kahn) Stein, died on August 6th 1936 in Hamburg, when her only grandchild Else was 17 years old. Jacob Stein’s death date is unknown.
During Kristallnacht, November 9th of 1938, Salomon Stein and other Jewish men in Berkach were rounded up by S.A men from Meiningen and taken to Buchenwald concentration camp. Salomon was registered in the camp on November the 10th 1938 and was kept there until December 10th 1938, released one month after his arrest.
Salomon’s daughter, Herta Stein, left Germany on November 16th 1938 from Hamburg, shortly after Kritstalnacht and her fathers arrest. She left to New York with her older cousin Luzie Hecht, the daughter of Edwin Hecht, her maternal uncle. Herta was 19 at the time, Luzie was 26. They arrived in New York on the 25th of November 1938.
On February 16th 1939, Herta submitted a declaration of intention for citizenship in the US. At that time she was single and working as a house maid in New York.
On May 10th of 1942, Salomon and Else (née Hecht) Stein were deported from Berkach to Belzyce ghetto. They were deported with five other Jewish members of the Berkach community, including the Buxbaum and Kaufmann families. All seven of them were murdered in the Holocaust.
Salomon and Else’s daughter Herta was living in the US when her parents were deported to Belzyce Ghetto. Herta married Harry Leopold on July 11th 1946 in Manhattan New York. According to US public records index, sometime between the years 1970-2002, Herta’s address was in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida. Herta (née Stein) Leopold died February 4th 2002 in Fort Lauderdale Florida, USA. She lived to be 82 years old.
Werner Sigismund Hecht, son of Nathan and Cacilie
The synagogue in Berkach remained intact throughout the Holocaust, World War II and the devision of Germany after the war. The small community of Berkach was one of the few to have Jewish places of worship and important infrastructure standing after so many synagogues, Jewish schools and Jewish cemeteries were purposefully destroyed throughout the war years. After the war, the synagogue was used as a multipurpose storage and warehouse, and the Jewish cemetery was partially destroyed . It wasn’t until after the Cold War that the synagogue was refurbished to preserve its structure and history of the community’s Jewish residents, all of whom were deported by September of 1942. In 1993 the synagogue was officially recognized as a cultural monument. Located inside the synagogue is a plaque, commemorating the Jewish members of Berkach’s small population who were deported and murdered during the Holocaust. The names of Salomon and Else (née Hecht) Stein are mentioned.
