At the end of the 19th century, the Merory family, who was Jewish, emigrated from an area that is now part of Poland to Berlin. Nine children were born and grew up in Berlin. The father Isidor Merory worked as an accountant at the Schultheiss brewery and died in 1926. The sons Josef and Siegbert Fritz were expelled from Berlin on October 28, 1938, along with their brother Martin as part of the first mass deportation, at the time called Polenaktion, and transported to the Polish border town Zbąszyń.

The actor Martin Merory had lived together with his non-Jewish wife, nee Sarge, and their three daughters Margarete, Liselotte, and Eva on Friedrichstraße 2. Ella Sarge came from a family involved in the theater, and Martin Merory belonged to the cultural avant-garde around Erwin Piscator and Bertolt Brecht. His brother Walter Merory was murdered in 1942 in the Hartheim Euthanasia Centre. In September 2017 a stolperstein was placed for him at Düppelstraße 39a in Berlin-Steglitz. The sisters Rosa and Sofie lived in the parental home with their mother Amalie Merory until 1942, when they were all deported to Riga.

The research into the fate of the Merory family was done as part of the preparations for the exhibition “Ausgewiesen! Berlin, 28. Oktober 1938. Die Geschichte der ‘Polenaktion,’” which was curated by staff members of the Aktives Museum e. V. and students and researchers at Freie Universität Berlin. The exhibition has been on display since July 8 at the New Synagogue Berlin Foundation – Centrum Judaicum. A detailed biography of the Merory family was published in the edited volume to accompany the exhibition. Review copies can be requested from the Metropol-Verlag.

The stolpersteins are financed by the district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg.