Ruth, Rosemarie and Lore were the daughters of Georg Bauernschmitt, born 23.7.1885 in Pössneck, and Sabina Bauernschmitt, née Herz, born 23.2.1887 in Krefeld, a married couple living in Dortmund since 1915. A storeroom administrator, brewer and waiter, the father Georg Bauernschmitt was a Roman Catholic, while his wife Sabina was a member of the Jewish faith. Latterly, up to 1 August 1938, the family lived at Lessingstrasse 67, before being forcedbelonge to move to a so-called “Jew house” at Bornstrasse 113.

With the takeover of power by the Nazis, the Bauernschmitt family, too, were subjected to the repressive legislation against the Jews. The “Nuremberg Laws” of 1935 prohibited the conclusion of marriages between Jews and non-Jews, though existing marriages remained valid as so-called “privileged marriages”. Under the racial definitions, the children of such marriages were denoted as “half-Jews”. If they belonged to the Jewish religious community, however, they were known as “Geltungsjuden” and deemed equivalent to “full Jews”, and as such were also subject to persecution by the Nazis.

Ruth, Rosemarie and Lore were placed on the list of persons designated for deportation to Zamość in southeast Poland, and along with around 800 further Jews from the Arnsberg administration district, left Dortmund South Railway Station on 30 April 1942.

No-one from this transport is known to have survived. Within the scope of the “Action Reinhardt”, the majority of the deportees were murdered in the Belzec and Sobibor extermination camps. It is known that a large number of the people on the transport from Dortmund were already selected and killed in the second half of May. Only those who were “fit for work” remained alive for a short time longer. Some of the temporary survivors were even able to send messages home – among them Ruth Bauernschmitt. Some messages of this kind sent home by deportees are preserved in the Marsberg City Archive. The last such message dates from August 1942. There are indications that a number of people survived through to early 1943, but the chain of evidence then ends. It must be assumed that the three Bauernschmitt daughters fell victim to the Shoah in the second half of 1942, or at the start of 1943 at the latest.
The mother, Sabina Bauernschmitt, died on 7 November 1950 in St. John’s Hospital (Johannishospital) in Dortmund.
The father, Georg Bauernschmitt, died on 14 November 1957 in Dortmund City Hospital.