Dr. Max Kellermann

Translation by Lesley Loy

Dr. Max Kellermann, born on 28.09.1874 in Gunzenhausen, grew up there with his two brothers Max and Seligmann Kellermann , in a beautiful sandstone house at Marktplatz 40 . He qualified as an ophthalmologist and moved to Bamberg on 17.02.1911.

There he married the daughter of a wealthy hop merchant, Ella Ilse Dessauer, born on 17June 1887.  One son was born from this marriage, Hans Rudi, on 27 December 1911 in Bamberg.

These photos from Ilse und Dr. Max Kellermann are from 'Gedenkbuch der jüdischen Bürger Bambergs'.

According to the address books dating up to 1937, the Kellermann family lived at Hainstrasse 4, in an elegant district of fine villas as of 1911.  In 1938 their residence was given as “Adolf-Hitler-Strasse 35”, now Lange Strasse 35

We learned from the Bamberg town archives that already in 1910 Dr. Kellermann had taken over the eye clinic of the deceased Dr Hans Burger at Grünen Markt 20 in Bamberg. One can read on the house façade that he operated the clinic until 27 June 1937.

“The Commemorative Book of the Jewish citizens of Bamberg. Victims of the national socialist terror 1933 to 1945, published by Antje Yael Deusel and Ortwin Beisbart, Bamberg 2008”, P198 ff, reports that following the final ban for Dr Max Kellermann to exercise his profession, the family was deported on 27 November 1941 from Bamberg to Riga – Jungfernhof, where they can still be traced on 2 December.  A request for restitution made in 1959 leads us to believe that the Kellermann family perished in the concentration camp. Unfortunately no other details could be ascertained.

According to the Commemorative Book , as of May 1940 their son Rudi was conscripted to forced labour by the town’s engineering department. He had previously been employed in 1938 as a waiter in Frankfurt/Main and Nürnberg. According to the Bamberg town archives Rudi shared the same fate as his parents and perished in a concentration camp.