Siegmund Poppert originally came from the Netherlands and registered as resident in Dortmund for the first time in 1905. He gave his profession as “travelling salesman” and “warehouseman”. However, Siegmund did not stay constantly in Dortmund after 1905, but repeatedly went off on his travels.

In 1910, he settled down permanently in Dortmund. In December 1910, he married Selma, née Rauner, with whom he had a son, Erich Karl, born in 1912. In 1914, a second son, named Walter Michel, was born. (For more on Walter Michel Poppert, see the Stolperstein for Hohestr. 61½).

During the First World War, Selma went with her sons to the Netherlands, and also in the years after the war, the family left Dortmund several times to go and live in the Netherlands. They were often accompanied by Selma’s sister, Olga Rauner.

Selma Poppert died in 1924. In the following year, Siegmund married Selma’s sister Olga, with whom he had a daughter, Ilse Selma Martha.

Two years later, the eldest son of the Poppert family, Erich Karl, left Dortmund and moved to Frankfurt. After then returning to Dortmund for a while, he decided in 1933 to move to the Netherlands. There, in 1934, he married Herta Speier. They had a daughter.

In May 1943, Erick Karl was sent first to Westerbork and deported from there a few days later to Sobibor. There is proof that he was still alive in September 1943, but what became of him after that is unclear. It must be assumed that he was murdered in Sobibor.
His wife and daughter survived the Holocaust.

Erich Karl’s father Siegmund, his stepmother Olga and his half-sister Ilse followed Erich Karl to the Netherlands in 1938. They lived in Amsterdam, where they were arrested in November 1942 and taken to Westerbork camp. From there, they were deported to Auschwitz, where they were murdered.