Siegfried (Fritz) Jordan

Siegfried Jordan, known as Fritz, was born on July 18, 1889 into a family of Munich cattle dealers. Following his marriage to Paula Frank, he ran the art gallery Jordan & Co. with her. It was initially located at Blumenstraße 21, and later at Prinzregentenstraße 2. In 1923 their son Peter was born. Two years later the young family moved to Mauerkircherstraße 13. Siegfried Jordan was an enthusiastic skier and spent a lot of time in the mountains. The life situation of the Jordan family deteriorated after the Nazi seizure of power. Like all Jews, Siegfried and Paula Jordan were not permitted to be members of the Reichskammer der bildenden Künste (Reich Chamber of Fine Arts), which meant that they got no permit to deal in so-called “German cultural heritage”. In 1938 they had to relinquish their trade. In December 1939, the gallery was transferred to a long-serving employee and to the non-Jewish brother-in-law of Paula Jordan, the future German Federal Justice Minister Dr. Thomas Dehler. At first, the Jordan family did not want to leave Germany because they felt a deep association with Munich. But they suffered more and more under the repression of the Nazi regime. One day after the “Kristallnacht” pogroms on November 9, 1938 Siegfried Jordan was deported to Dachau concentration camp and interned there until December 6, 1938. In May 1939, Siegfried and Paula Jordan managed to make it possible for their son Peter, then 15, to emigrate to Great Britain, which saved his life. They hoped to be able to follow him soon. In the Spring of 1940, Siegfried and Paula Jordan were forced to leave their apartment in Mauerkircherstraße. They lived for a time in a boarding house at Leopoldstraße 16. Siegfried and Paula Jordan received the first deportation order in Munich along with some 1,000 other Jewish women, men and children. On November 20, 1941 the Gestapo (Secret Police) sent them to the “Judensiedlung” (“Jewish Quarter”) Milbertshofen at Knorrstraße 148 and deported them to Kaunus in Lithuania. There, SS mobile killing squads shot them on November 25, 1941 and had them buried in mass graves.(text Barbara Hutzelmann, editor C. Fritsche, translation C. Hales)