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After the handover of the shop Ludwig and Rosa lived still in their flat beside the shop and prepared their expatriation. Amongst other things, they purchased furniture for their new home abroad..
In the Reichskristallnacht on November 9, 1938 the Eisners’ flat was totally devastated. All lamps, mirrors, the bathroom and a sewing machine were shattered, the duvets were slit and shaken on the street. The next day a lot of things were stolen: a radio, a typewriter, a gas cooker, a carpet, two paintings, a lot of bed- and table linen. The damage done amounted to 7,000 RM.
My eldest uncle, Helmut, described in his memoir that during the Reichskristallnacht he had stood alone at the window. I asked him several times for an explanation, since I do find this strange. If I had a heavily pregnant wife and 3 little kids and the mob were ravaging on the streets, set houses on fire and hunt people, I would barricade me and my family in the most secure room of the building. But my grandfather obviously let his six year old son stand alone at the window and let him watch the ravaging going on the streets. For me, this would only make sense, if my grandfather had been on the street, either to take part in the ravaging or to make clear to the mob that the Jewish school and the Eisner shop were no longer Jewish but Arian property and thus not to be destroyed.
Or did he only try to frustrate that the flames of the neighbor property encroached? The shop of the Jewish family Siedner was located opposite of the property of my grandfather and directly beside the purchased property of the Eisners.And this building was burnt in Reichskristallnacht.
In Reichskristallnacht at least another grocery shop and several Jewish flats were destroyed. Men and women were beaten. But the synagogue survived. The son of the CEO of the municipal saving bank later wrote in his biography that his father in the morning of November 9 was called by a NSDAP-office which wanted to announce that the synagogue would be destroyed that night but his father could convince the Nazis to destroy the synagogue just symbolically in order not to destroy national wealth. And the Nazi-mob was disciplined: they destroyed the interior but didn't touch the building.
Four days later the Jewish parish was dissolved.
Siedner, vor 1938