In the summer of 1938, Maria Leibsohn accompanied a group of holiday children from Frankfurt to the Home of the Jewish Women's Association. She was the daughter of the Frankfurt merchant Elias Leibsohn and his wife Helene, née Gerber. Maria had three brothers and a sister.

In her hometown of Frankfurt, Maria visited the philanthropic institution between 1925 and 1935 until the Middle Grade. After finishing school, she completed the one-year Domestic Science school. She wanted to be a kindergarten teacher. However, she was not able to complete any training in this profession because of the persecution. Instead, she worked as a temporary employee in kindergartens, lastly at the Jewish Kindergarten in Frankfurt's Baumweg.

At the time of Maria's stay in Neu-Isenburg, the Leibsohn family was already in a precarious economic situation. The father had led a leather goods business until the mid-1920s. During the Nazi era, he was employed as a leather worker at a company in Rossmarkt, but he lost this job in 1934/35.

In August 1939, Maria Leibsohn tried to escape from Germany. She submitted a request for the transportation of her belongings to England with the Chief Finance President Kassel, Foreign Exchange Office S, Frankfurt am Main. However, the procedure dragged on due to a tax demanded by the authorities which Maria Leibsohn could not pay until after the beginning of the war. It was about 40 Reichsmark which was eventually issued on the destitute emigrants on September 9. It was already too late for an escape.

On November 22, 1941, Maria Leibsohn was taken from Frankfurt to the ghetto Kaunas together with her mother, sister, brother-in-law and niece. The deportees were murdered there on November 25, 1941.

Maria's father was imprisoned on November 13, 1938, in the Buchenwald concentration camp after the November pogrom where he was held until January 9, 1939. A little later, he fled to Belgium but was taken by the Nazi henchmen and imprisoned in Mechelen (Malines). On September 8, 1942, he was sent to Cosel (Ko?le) near Opole. No trace of him exists from there on.

Maria's brother Moritz was also murdered. The two other brothers were able to flee from Germany in time. They lived in the USA and Israel after the end of the Second World War.

Source: Datenbank des Jüdischen Museums Frankfurt am Main. Texte: zeitsprung. Kontor für Geschichte, Frankfurt am Main: