The brothers Ludwig and Willy Holzer ran a cattle trading business together in Traunstein. After the death of his wife Bertha, Ludwig Holzer moved to Munich with his three daughters in the mid-1920s and opened a horse dealership in Landsbergerstraße. Willy initially continued to run the business in Traunstein, but his wife Fanny Holzer died in 1936. After the SA and NSDAP threatened the family on 9 November 1938, Willy Holzer and his children fled to his brother in Munich.
After the National Socialists came to power, the Holzers were increasingly marginalised. Their assets were frozen, they had to do forced labour and were sent to the so-called ‘Jews’ house’ in Trogerstraße. Ludwig Holzer's daughter Cäcilie had married into the Spatz cattle dealer family in Wolfratshausen in 1925. She was deported to Kaunas with her son Wilhelm in 1941 and murdered there. A few years later, Ludwig Holzer was also deported and murdered. Ludwig Holzer's daughter Johanna managed to emigrate to the USA. His daughter Ilse survived with two children in Munich in a so-called ‘mixed marriage’.
Holzer's sons Benno and Alfred and his wife Martha were also deported to Kaunas in 1941 and murdered. Willy Holzer and his children Hedwig and Max were also deported and murdered in the following years. Only Willy's daughter Clara was able to escape to England.
A memorial service for the Holzer family and Cäcilie and Wilhelm Spatz will take place on 9 April 2025, before the Memorial Signs for Alfred, Benno, Hedwig, Martha and Willi Holzer as well as Cäcilie and Wilhelm Spatz are installed at their former place of residence in Trogerstraße.
