Jewish memories: Uhlfelder Department Store in Munich

While walking the streets of Munich late in one of the last evenings, I discovered this stone inscription, on one of the walls of the buildings close to Marienplatz. It reminds about the Kaufhaus/Department store Uhlfelder, the first of this kind open in Munich in 1878. Owned by the Jewish businessman Heinrich Uhlfelder, it was a success and rapidly expanded with new stores, especially due to the low prices targeting the low income shoppers and the variety of merchandise.

The success did not suit well the local anti-Semitic establishment, and in April 1933, a demonstration took place in the front of the shop. Five years after, on Kristallnacht, the shops were vandalized and burnt, an event reminded by the stone inscription. Heinrich Uhlfelder and his son, as well as other 1,000 Jews are interned to Dachau, where many will die. Somehow, Uhlfelder is able to go out and get for him and his family a visa to India, not before being forced to give up his properties and even to pay for the damage made during the 1938 destruction. 

After the war, in 1953, he returns to Munich trying to get back his properties through more than 100 judicial files. He will be able to recover only part of it.