Viktor Schanzer, a Jewish book and art dealer from Witonerici or Witanowice in Silesia, came to Dortmund around 1877. Here, he soon became an important member of the Dortmund newspaper sector. Among other things, he bought up a local newspaper in 1877, which from 1895 onwards appeared under the name “Dortmunder Tageblatt”.

With his wife Mathilde (who died before 1938), Viktor had six children: Helma, Julius, Alice, Rudolf, Henriette and Susanne. Helma and Alice lived the whole of their lives with Viktor.

After studying – he was a qualified music teacher and master violinist – Julius worked as a self-employed music teacher and also as an instructor at the City Conservatoire. In 1938, he went back to live with his father and sisters at Prinzenstrasse 9/11. In the same year, he was detained briefly in Sachsenhausen concentration camp in the wake of the “Pogrom night”.

His two sisters entered the teaching profession, and in the 1920s and ‘30s taught at various schools in Dortmund, some of them Jewish. They provided financial support for their father Victor, who after 1933 was unemployed, and their brother Julius.

Following the sale of his newspaper to DDP in 1922, Viktor initially continued to work in the agency as a consultant. After the death of his wife Mathilde, he moved in 1938 into the former premises of the newspaper agency in Prinzenstrasse, which were still owned by him. Although according to an agreement, Viktor was supposed to sell the house and emigrate with his children, Viktor stayed in Dortmund. Three of his children – Rudolf, Henriette and Susanne – emigrated in the following year to the USA and the Netherlands, where they survived the Holocaust.

Helma, Alice and Julius, on the other hand, stayed behind in Germany and were deported in April 1942, first of all to the Zamosc ghetto and then from there to Sobibor or Belzec extermination camp, where they were ultimately murdered.

In the summer of the same year, Viktor Schanzer was sent at the advanced age of 82 to Theresienstadt concentration camp, where he already died in October of unknown causes. The buildings at Prinzenstrasse 9/11 subsequently served as “Jew houses” and as a starting point for further transports to Zamosc. After 1945, Viktor, Alice and Helma Schanzer where officially declared dead.