Markus Schiffmann, born Markus Schiffmann originally hailed from the Galicia region of central Europe, which at that time formed part of the Austria-Hungarian Empire, and came to Dortmund in 1918. He had previously served in the Austro-Hungarian army. He changed his birth name from Mordechai Shifman to Markus Schiffmann.
In Dortmund, he worked as a tradesman and warehouseman. In 1920, he married his wife Eva, who also originated from Galicia but meanwhile lived in Duisburg. The couple had three children, of whom sons Erwin and Samuel Salomon survived the Shoah, but the daughter, Grete, shared the fate of her parents.

Erwin left Dortmund in 1937, emigrated two years later to Denmark, and fled from there to Sweden in 1943. Samuel Salomon was initially deported together with his parents and sister, but found his way in 1939 to a Zionist pioneer camp in Bialystok. In 1941, he managed to reach Palestine, where he lived in a kibbutz with his family.

As a result of the First World War, the family were given Polish citizenship; consequently, those members of the family still living in Dortmund were deported to Poland by train on 28 October 1938 in the course of the so-called “Polish action”. They initially lived in Zbaszyn and, after the German assault on Poland, went to live with relatives in Turka, but were than taken to the Sambor ghetto. Their fate from then on is unknown, so it is not clear whether they fell victim to a death squad or whether they were murdered in Belzec concentration camp.
Markus, Eva and Grete were any rate declared dead in 1956.