VVN-BdA Kaiserslautern: http://www.vvn-bda-kl.de/spuren/dv/opfer.html. ;

Helene Sklarek was the mother of Heinrich Sklarek who is also listed in this Memorial Book. She was born in Kaiserslautern and grew up there with her parents and three brothers. Helene’s father, Moritz Sklarek, born on August 26, 1877, in Kleczczewo, Poland, was a merchant and operated a machine embroidery and sack handling facility in Kaiserslautern. Her mother Thekla Sklarek née Felsenthal, born on August 28, 1883, came from a well-established Jewish family in Odenthal/Glan. She was a real estate agent. Thekla’s family lived in Kaiserslautern since 1903. Thekla Felsenthal and Moritz Sklarek got married on February 18, 1913.

On April 26, 1937, the daughter, Helene Sklarek gave birth to her son Heinrich at the Jewish Hospital in Frankfurt. After the stay in the hospital, she looked after her child for one month at the Neu-Isenburg Home of the Jewish Women’s Association. On July 1, 1937, Helene returned to Kaiserslautern. She brought her little son home that same month.

Since Helene’s father was of Polish origin, the seven-member Sklarek family was deported to Bentschen by the German authorities at the end of October 1938 in a mass deportation called the "Poland Action.” No trace of them exists there on. It can be assumed that after the beginning of the war, she was murdered in a Nazi camp in German-occupied Poland. Helene Sklarek was 21 years old during her deportation, her son Henry was only one-year-old.

The fate of the Sklarek family has been researched by Michael Wiesheu for the Stumbling Block Initiative in Kaiserslautern, and the results have been made available for this Memorial Book. His research results have contributed significantly to the completion of this Memorial Book entry.

Further sources: Gedenkbuch des Bundesarchivs - Opfer der Verfolgung der Juden unter der nationalsozialistischen Gewaltherrschaft in Deutschland 1933 – 1945 (Online-Version); VVN-BdA Kaiserslautern: http://www.vvn-bda-kl.de/spuren/dv/opfer.html.: