Jürgen Holz

Jürgen Rudolf Günther Holz was born on 11 January 1929 in Berlin. His parents were Werner Holz, born on 20 December 1898 in Berlin, and Johanna Holz (née Lewitt), born on 22 September 1904 in Berlin. Immediately after graduating from school, Werner Holz served as a soldier in World War I. He was held as a prisoner of war by the British until October 1919. Following his release from captivity and from military service, he initially worked as a correspondent and customs agent for the Berlin freight forwarding firm Winkler & Fischer, where he later became head of the department responsible for shipments to the Netherlands, overseas destinations and luggage. In 1924, following the firm’s collapse, he moved into the insurance business. From 1924 onwards, he worked in Berlin as a deputy director or general agent for various insurance companies. Johanna Lewitt also came from a merchant family and was working as a stenographer in 1926. She and Werner Holz were married on 26 October 1926 in Berlin. Initially, they lived together at Paulsenstraße 42b, and after the birth of Jürgen, at Holsteinische Straße 34 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf.

The Holz family was persecuted as Jewish in Nazi Germany. From 1937 onwards, Werner Holz lost his positions as an insurance agent. He took on a series of short-term roles with Berlin-based haulage firms, first at Spedition und Lagerung Merkur Leopold Abraham, which was forcibly dissolved in 1939, and then at the freight forwarding firm “August Mai Nachf. Edwin Kaiser”. In 1941, Werner Holz was ultimately employed as a construction worker at the firm Fritz Müller Zimmerei und Baugeschäft in Berlin-Lichterfelde. The family had to give up their three-room flat on Holsteinische Straße and moved, around 1938, first to a flat at Kurfürstendamm 152, and finally, in 1940, to a sublet, a partially furnished room at Kalckreuthstraße 1. Jürgen Holz was excluded from attending state schools due to anti-Semitic legislation in Germany. From October 1939, he attended the Goldschmidt School (Private Jüdische Schule Dr. Leonore Goldschmidt) at Hohenzollerndamm 110a in Berlin-Schmargendorf. 

On 27 November 1941, Jürgen, Johanna and Werner Holz were deported from Berlin to Riga, where they were murdered on 30 November.

The marks of provenance and objects connected to Jürgen Holz are listed here in the co-operative provenance database Looted Cultural Assets.

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