Herbert Werner Wertheimer

Herbert Werner Wertheimer was born on October 2, 1923 in Munich. He was the son of the merchant Max Wertheimer and his wife Bertha. He had two elder brothers: Kurt and a half-brother Erich from his father’s first marriage. As rampant inflation began to spread, the family lost its means and assets in the mid-1920s, and was forced to live for a while from the sales of still-existing stock, before they then depended on unemployment benefits. In these circumstances the parents felt compelled to provisionally place Herbert and Kurt in the Jewish children’s home at Antonienstraße 7. In 1926 the family moved to Nymphenburger Straße 29.
The persecution of Jews that followed the establishment of Nazi rule soon had an impact on the family. Herbert’s half-brother Erich Wertheimer emigrated to New York in 1935. Kurt Wertheimer fled to Palestine via Prague in 1936. In April 1938, Herbert commenced a carpentry apprenticeship at a facility for young trainees belonging to the Jewish community in Hohenzollernstraße 4. He moved there to live in August 1939. At the home, 45 youths were trained in practical professions in preparation for emigration. Herbert Wertheimer was presumably planning to leave Germany. His plans were thwarted however. For unknown reasons the Gestapo (Secret Police) arrested him on the evening of January 22, 1940 and subsequently detained him in the Stadelheim, Neudeck, and Landsberg am Lech prisons. On March 12, 1941 the Gestapo then moved Herbert Wertheimer to Dachau concentration camp and shot him on the very same day ‒ officially for obstructing state authorities. Herbert Wertheimer’s parents Bertha and Max were also killed: the Gestapo deported them on April 4, 1942 to Piaski ghetto, after which there is no further trace. (text Helene Weber, editor C. Fritsche, translation P. Bowman)