Fritz Beer was born on January 21, 1887, in St. Ingbert. A decorated World War I veteran, he later worked at a rag-sorting plant and co-founded a new company in 1931 after his former employer went bankrupt. Due to Nazi "Aryanization" policies, Fritz was forced out of the business. Though his children managed to emigrate, he and his wife Elisabeth, born June 17, 1900, were unable to leave because of her illness. On October 22, 1940, they were deported to Gurs and later to Auschwitz via Drancy on August 12, 1942, where they were murdered.
Their son Georg, born in 1923, escaped to Denmark in 1939 and later to Sweden to avoid Nazi persecution. He returned to Denmark in 1945 and died in Nigeria in 1987. Hans, born in 1921, emigrated to Palestine in 1939, studied engineering in Haifa, and later became a university professor in the U.S. Stephanie, born in 1925, escaped to England on a Kindertransport in 1939, became a dental technician, and married Norman Andrew Lowde.
