Jakob Koppel came originally from the town of Norden. At the beginning of 1919, the Jewish lawyer and notary came to live at Virchowstrasse 14 in Hörde. In August of the same year, he married his wife Klara or Cläre, née Gans. The couple’s two sons, Ernst and Werner, were born in 1921 and 1927 in Hörde. Jakob’s mother-in-law, Johanna Gans, also lived with the family from 1934 onwards.

During the First World War, Jakob Koppel was injured in a gas attack. He was therefore eligible for certain special entitlements; nevertheless, he and his family, too, were subjected to the discrimination measures in force since 1933.

In December 1934, the family moved first of all to Seydlitzstrasse 35. From 1936, son Ernst embarked on an apprenticeship at an Israeli horticultural college in Hannover. After being detained in the “Pogrom night”, he fled via the Netherlands to England, where he survived the Holocaust. His brother Werner was able to emigrate to Palestine in 1940, and so also avoided deportation. Johanna Gans was deported to Theresienstadt in 1941 or 1942; while she lived to experience her liberation, she died in 1946 in Hörde.

In 1943, Jakob and Klara Koppel were forced to leave their home once more and go and live at Hermannstrasse 50. Less than one month later, the couple were deported to Theresienstadt concentration camp, but managed to survive their stay there and already returned to Dortmund in 1945. Although Jakob’s licence to practise as a lawyer was restored, his health was badly impaired through his First World War injury, the traumatic events of the Nazi period and the two years spent in the concentration camp, with the result that his ability to work was severely restricted. His death in 1952 was at least partly due to his time in the concentration camp. In the following years, his widow Klara moved home several times within Dortmund; she ultimately died in Waldniel in 1996 at the age of 100.