I Fates: The Fellert Family
At number 10 Karl-Marx-Straße, in front of the last residence of the Feller family, Gunter Demnig has set six Stumbling Stones into the pavement. Four of them are dedicated to the family of Kurt Martin Fellert.
Carsten Höft of the Historical Society of Frankfurt (Oder) researched the life history of the Fellert family and reported to us in an interview:
"Kurt Martin Fellert was born in 1894 in Fürstenberg an der Oder. He left Fürstenberg in the 1920s and lived in Berlin until he got married. In 1929 he married Else Ruth Julie, née Luft.  She was born in 1905 in Frankfurt (Oder). Kurt Martin Fellert ran a shop for textile goods and work clothing at Jüdenstraße 7.
The Kurt Martin Fellert family lived at Richtstraße 49. In 1931 their daughter Rita was born and in 1936 their son Lothar Max.
Martin Fellert was arrested after the Night of Broken Glass and sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. He was released from there on 13.12.1938. On 31.03.1942 Kurt and Elsa submitted a declaration of property for themselves but also for their children. From this it can be seen that Kurt Martin Fellert was now working as a plumber for Friedrich König, Karlstraße, for a weekly wage of 25 Reichsmark. Kurt, Elsa and Lothar had been living since 17.09.1941 in a room at Rosenstraße 36."
The address is that of the Jewish hospital, which is now serving as a so-called Jews` house. Living conditions here are dreadful.
The whole Fellert family has to live in just one room. In the year 1942, the parents decide to send their then 11-year-old daughter Rita to the Baruch-Auerbachsche Orphans' and
Educational home in Berlin.
They hope that in this way little Rita, at least, can be got out of Germany. At this point Lothar is 4 and he stays with the family. But the hope that Rita can escape the German Reich is not fulfilled. Rita comes back to Frankfurt (Oder) and on 02 April 1942 she and her parents and brother are deported to Warsaw. Rita is only 11 years old, her brother 4.
It is not known what exactly happens to them in the Ghetto. Nothing more is heard of the Fellert family.
Kurt Fellert came from Fürstenberg and had four siblings. The brothers Albert and Werner had textiles businesses very close by, in Richtstraße 37 and 41. Their shops, too, were Aryanised. The head of the family already decided before the National Socialists took power that the Fellert siblings should defy the Nazis and strengthen the opposition. We can assume that all five siblings and their spouses thereupon joined left-wing parties.
Dana Gierke, Student at the European University Viadrina
| 
