Siegmund Gottschalk, born 12.10.1876
Martha Gottschalk, née Steinweg, born 25.8.1884
Alfred Gottschalk, born 17.8.1910

Wickeder Hellweg 118, Brackel

Siegmund Gottschalk, unlike his wife Martha, did not come from Dortmund or its environs, but was born in Hemer.
Where and when he and Martha met and married is unfortunately no longer known. Nor is anything known about what Siegmund did for a living.

At any rate, the couple had a son, Alfred, in 1910, and appear to have then also moved into the house on Wickeder Hellweg.

The family lived together at that address until 1939, but the parents were then forced to go and live in a so-called “Jew house” at Museumsstrasse 5. At the same time, son Alfred moved to Antwerp.

After being compelled to move several times within Dortmund, in summer 1942, Siegmund and Martha were deported to Theresienstadt, where it appears that they died. They therefore number among the victims of the Holocaust.

It is still not possible to reconstruct Alfred’s life after that time with any certainty. He presumably lived until 1940 in the Centre de Réfuges Marquain les Tournaj and then fled from there in an attempt to evade the advancing German army. However, in the course of his flight, he appears to have been picked up by the French authorities and interned in Gurs camp. Some of the Jews interned there were later deported to Auschwitz.
Nothing more is known about the fate of Alfred. It is presumed that he died in Auschwitz or one of its satellite camps.

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