Julius Dellheim, born in Mutterstadt on 6 June 1885, was a horse trader married to Amalie Marum, born in Bingen on 7 June 1891. They had two children, Alfred and Tilli, and lived at Friedensstraße 8. After the November pogrom in 1938, their home was destroyed by an SA unit. Julius was arrested and taken to Dachau, returning weeks later badly injured. Amalie sent Alfred to England on a Kindertransport in January 1939, saving his life. Julius, Amalie and Tilli were deported to Gurs on 22 October 1940, later passing through Rivesaltes and Drancy before being deported to Auschwitz on 4 November 1942. Alfred, the only survivor, later lived in East Germany and died in Berlin in 2003.
Fritz Dellheim, born in Mutterstadt in 1898, married the Catholic Maria Weißbrod in 1922. Because Fritz was Jewish, their marriage was later classified by the Nazis as a “mixed marriage.” Their three children, Ruth, Harri and Isolde, were baptized Catholic but labelled “half-Jews” by the regime. Fritz held various jobs and in 1932 served as third head of the Jewish community. After the November pogrom, he was sent to Dachau as a “protective custody” prisoner and released weeks later. The family escaped deportation to Gurs because of Maria’s Catholic background, but Fritz still had to hide several times in an earth hole on the Unold family’s property. Near the end of the war, when “half-Jews” were also threatened with deportation, the family fled toward Edenkoben and survived. Ruth later helped preserve Mutterstadt’s Jewish history.
