The Pinkus family originated from Posen (now Poznan). All the children of the family – in addition to Max and Regina, also the siblings Paula (born 1896), Gustav (born 1898) and Isidor (born 1901) – were born there. Why and when they came to Dortmund is not now known for certain. It may have occurred in the wake of the First World War, in which father Pinkus and two of the sons lost their lives. After the war, Posen became part of Poland, and it was probably this that caused the Pinkus family with their German background to move to Germany.

Except for Paula, the Pinkus family probably first of all stayed in Münster.
On a now unknown date, Paula married Fritz Günther, a bookbinder, who went to live in Dortmund, to where he then brought his wife, along with her brothers Isidor, Max and Gustav.
Günther was of Protestant denomination, and Paula also adopted this faith. The couple had two children, Liselotte und Heinz, and in 1928, the family moved to Breslau (now Wroclaw).

In 1922, mother Dorothea, with daughter Regina, went to live in Adlerstrasse in Dortmund. Max and Isidor now also joined their mother and sister. Gustav, meanwhile, moved to Hamm.

In the 1930s, the family members moved out one by one through marriage. The first to leave Adlerstrasse was Isidor on his marriage to Else Vogelsang. The couple had two children, Hermann and Fanny, and left Germany in 1933 for the Netherlands. In 1942, the family were deported first to Westerbork and then to Auschwitz, where Else and the children were gassed. Isidor survived the concentration camp.

Max Pinkus, a hairdresser, died in 1939. He poisoned himself after being dismissed from his job by his boss under pressure from the Nazis.
Gustav Pinkus died in Riga, after being deported there.
Regina never married and stayed with her mother. Together, in 1941, they were forced to go and live in the “Jew house” at Stiftsstr. 21.
Regina was deported in 1942 to Riga, where she died.
Mother Dorothea was forced to move to another address in Dortmund and was subsequently deported to Theresienstadt concentration camp, where she died in 1943.