Isaak Bacharach

Isaak Bacharach was born in Fellheim near Memmingen on September 15, 1864. His parents were the merchant Jakob Bacharach and Julie, née Baumann. He grew up with his sister Karoline and his brother Julius. Nothing is known about his childhood and youth. In 1887 he came to Munich, and in 1895 he married Betty Heumann, who came from Munich. The childless couple lived from 1900 at Frauenstraße 6, which became house number 24 from 1928 on. Isaak Bacharach ran together with his brother Julius the leather store "J. Bacharach", established in 1894, at Sendlinger Straße 12, later at Dultstraße 2a. He was active in the Jewish community in Munich in the area of caring for the sick and in the Chewra Kadischa, the funeral society. He was also a member of the synagogue committee and the ritual committee and was the honorary community representative for cemeteries.
The Nazi seizure of power brought about an abrupt change in the lives of Isaak Bacharach and his wife Betty. From one day to the next they were deprived of their livelihoods, as the leather store, targeted from 1933 onwards by the boycott measures against Jews ordered by Munich’s city authorities, had to close in 1935. Isaak Bacharach died of a heart condition in his home on September 17, 1936. His wife, his siblings Karoline and Julius Bacharach and his sister-in-law Klara were forced to move on November 14, 1941 into the "Jüdische Übernachtungshaus" (Jewish Hostel), a mass accommodation for older Jewish women and men, at Wagnerstraße 3. Karoline Bacharach died there on June 28, 1942 of pneumonia. On July 23, 1942 the Gestapo (Secret Police) deported Betty, Klara and Julius Bacharach from the camp for Jews in Milbertshofen at Knorrstraße 148 to Theresienstadt ghetto, where Julius Bacharach died ten months later as a result of the horrific living conditions. Klara Bacharach was deported to Auschwitz extermination camp and murdered in October 1944. Isaak Bacharach’s wife Betty managed to reach Switzerland in an exchange transport in February 1945, and survived. (text Barbara Hutzelmann; editor C. Fritsche; translation C. Hales)