Julius Busack was born in 1880 in Darup near Münster, Germany, and married Helene Kugelmann in 1908. They lived in Moers, where Julius ran a men’s and boys’ clothing shop and raised three children: Liese, Lore, and Paul. After Helene died in 1933, Julius faced Nazi persecution; his shop was confiscated in 1937, and he fled to Amsterdam. In 1942 he was deported via Westerbork to Auschwitz, forced into labor, and died there in late 1943. Stolpersteine were later placed at his former addresses in Moers and Amsterdam.
All three children survived the war: Liese emigrated to Australia via the U.S.; Lore hid in the Netherlands before also moving to Australia after 1950; and Paul escaped to England, changed his name to Peter Bently, and died in London in 2012.
Josef Milter, born in 1886 in western Ukraine, and Jettchen Birnbaum, born in 1887 in Fürth, Germany, settled in Amsterdam after years in Germany, including Berlin. They had a daughter, Lieselotte, born in 1912 in Ulm. Josef worked as a merchant and later briefly for the Jewish Council’s food distribution, which offered temporary protection during the Nazi occupation. The family lived in several Amsterdam addresses, often renting rooms. In June 1943 Josef and Jettchen were arrested, deported to Auschwitz a month later, and murdered on arrival.
Lieselotte and her husband Abraham Goldwasser, originally from Auschwitz, Poland, moved to Amsterdam with their two sons, Fred and Jacques. The parents escaped to Switzerland, but the boys were later arrested, sent via Theresienstadt to Auschwitz, and killed in October 1944. Lieselotte and Abraham had another son, Edward, in Switzerland in 1944, returned to the Netherlands, and emigrated to the United States in 1953.
Rhane Franke-Michaelis, an 86-year-old widow from Berlin, was registered in Amsterdam in March 1939 at Beethovenstraat 99. A month later her son Jean joined her, and in June they moved to furnished rooms on Stadionweg 57-III. Rhane had been widowed since 1925; Jean, aged 52, was an unmarried commercial agent. Jean’s sister Lucie already lived in Amsterdam with her husband Max Löwenberg and their daughter Ruth, who emigrated to South Africa in 1937, married Peter Oppenheim, and had a son in 1940.
Rhane and Jean were sent to Westerbork in March 1943 and deported five days later to Sobibor. Rhane was murdered on arrival; Jean was forced to work there until his death in June 1943. Lucie, who held temporary protection through work for the Jewish Council, and Max were nevertheless arrested in 1943 and deported to Bergen-Belsen in February 1944. Max died there, while Lucie survived.
