"I am alive! It is a miracle from G'd"
START Origin Home Discrimination Emigration SS St Louis Camp Odyssey New Life
Mina
Markus
Jakob and Frieda
Oskar
Salo
Leon
 Markus Blechner with his cousin, Jacob Chulew in Rymanow, Galicia in the 1920's. Mina and Markus Blechner in San Remo, April 1939. They spent numerous holidays in San Remo. The stone quarry at Buchenwald concentration camp. Passport photo of Markus Blechner, Munich ca. 1939. The grave of Markus Blechner in the Jewish Cemetery in Munich.
Entry of Markus Blechner in the Prisoners' Book of Stadelheim dd 9.9.1939.
Plan of Buchenwald concentration camp.
Plan of Buchenwald concentration camp.
Letter from Felix Epstein dd 23 November 1939 to Jakob Blechner on the death of Markus Blechner.
Letter from Felix Epstein dd 23 November 1939 to Jakob Blechner on the death of Markus Blechner.

Markus
Deportation and Murder

After an unsuccessful attempt to emigrate to Switzerland, Mina, Markus and Salo Blechner return to Munich.

Only a few days after their return to the empty apartment at Klenzestrasse 65, the decree is issued to take into custody Polish Jews "for their own protection." On the 9th September 1939 the Gestapo arrest Markus Blechner in Munich and take him initially to Stadelheim Prison and later to Buchenwald concentration camp.

Mina Blechner tries ceaselessly to secure visas for her husband and fights for his release from camp. Her efforts are unsuccessful.

Mid November 1939, she receives news that her husband, Markus had died on the 14th November 1939 in Buchenwald. His body is cremated in the camp and his ashes are returned to Mina for internment in the Jewish cemetery in Munich.