The shop for watches, gold and silverware and gift articles at Schmiedestraße 18 in Schwerin was founded in 1888 by the watchmaker Hermann Löwenthal and later run by his son Fritz Löwenthal [2]. It had branches in Crivitz and Wismar [1][2]. During the November pogrom the shop was wrecked, and Fritz Löwenthal, who was taken into "protective custody", was forced to sell his houses [1]. In June 1939 he fled with his wife Sophie to Chile [1][6].
Foundation and family
The watchmaker Hermann Löwenthal, the son of a rural Jew from Rehna, opened a shop for watches, gold, silver and gift articles in Schwerin in 1888 under the name "Mecklenburg Warehouse of Watches, Gold and Silverware. The House for Gifts" (German original in the German version of this page) [2]. His son Fritz Löwenthal, who was born in Schwerin on 19 April 1891, trained as a watchmaker after school and took over the shop at Schmiedestraße 18 from his father [1][6]. According to the publisher's description of Dieter Guderian's book, he took over the management after his father's death, whose dates the description, however, does not give [2]. In the First World War Fritz Löwenthal served at the front and received several decorations [2], although the date of his discharge from the army is given differently in the sources and therefore remains open [2][6]. the family tree database names him as the owner of the house at Schmiedestraße 18 and as a board member of the Jewish community and of the "Reichsbund jüdischer Frontsoldaten" (Reich Association of Jewish Front-Line Soldiers) [6]. Since 1930 he was married to Sophie Löwenthal née Fuchs, her second marriage [1].
Branches in Crivitz and Wismar
According to the Wikipedia list of the Schwerin Stolpersteine, Fritz Löwenthal expanded the business "as late as 1933" to Crivitz and Wismar [1]. The publisher's description of the Guderian book speaks of flourishing branches in Crivitz and Wismar that made the business grow strongly under his management [2]. The 2012 list of the Claims Conference has three entries for Fritz Löwenthal, namely Schwerin, Schmiedestraße 18 (no. 65), Crivitz, Ernst-Thälmann-Straße 55 (Große Straße) (no. 64) and Wismar, Lübsche Straße 55 (no. 62) [5].
The November pogrom of 1938 and the forced sale
In the night of 9 to 10 November 1938 National Socialists wrecked and destroyed the remaining shops owned by Jews in Schwerin, among them the jeweller's shop of Fritz Löwenthal in Schmiedestraße [1][4]. Fritz Löwenthal was taken into "protective custody" and held in Neustrelitz prison, and in the process he was forced to sell his houses [1]. According to the Wikipedia page on the Schwerin community, Gestapo chief Ludwig Oldach had 16 Jewish men temporarily taken to the Neustrelitz penitentiary, who were released only after agreeing to sell their businesses and leave Germany [4]. The inscription of the stone laid in 2014 reads "ARISIERT 1938" ("Aryanized 1938") [1].
Emigration and exile
In June 1939 Fritz and Sophie Löwenthal managed to flee to Chile [1]. the family tree database gives 24 June 1939 as the travel date, namely on the ship "Hannover" from Bremen to Valparaiso [6]. Fritz Löwenthal died in Santiago de Chile in 1951 [1], for which the family tree database gives 12 June 1951 [6]. From exile he wrote on 8 June 1947 to Hugo Mehler, chairman of the newly founded Jewish community of Schwerin [7]. According to the family tree database, the foreign-exchange files of the Oberfinanzpräsident Nordmark (Devisenstelle Lübeck) also include a file "Löwenthal, Fritz Israel, (Schwerin), removal goods to Chile, sale of a plot in Crivitz, 1939-1944" [8]. Sophie Löwenthal moved to Israel in 1971 and died there in a home for the elderly on 11 March 1990 [1].
Remembrance
On 8 March 2014 the artist Gunter Demnig laid Stolpersteine for Fritz and Sophie Löwenthal in front of Schmiedestraße 18, with the inscription "HIER WOHNTE UND ARBEITETE HAUS DER GESCHENKE" ("Here lived and worked Haus der Geschenke") [1][3]. The City of Schwerin had announced the laying on 6 March 2014 [3]. Fritz Löwenthal's life was described in a book by Dieter Guderian in 2006 [2].