Stumbling stone for Richard, Gerta Halberstadt, née Hirschfeld, Charlotte Hirschfeld, and Fanny Halberstadt, née Schloß

Ancestors of the Halberstadt family were already living in Offenbach in the late 18th century. The oldest Offenbach residents' register from 1784 mentions a Löb Halberstadt and the widow of an Abraham Halberstadt. The list of graves in the old Jewish cemetery on Bismarckstraße mentions three other members of this family: Vögel, the wife of Löb Halberstadt; Mordechaj, the son of Löb Halberstadt; and Jendele, the wife of Nathan Halberstadt. This Nathan Halberstadt, the great-grandfather of Richard Halberstadt, was admitted to the city of Offenbach as a "protective relative" in 1817. His sons, Leopold Löb Halberstadt and Samuel Halberstadt, are mentioned in the Offenbach address book of 1846 as the Halberstadt brothers. Together they ran a "Ellenwarenhandlung", a store selling clothing fabrics, in Frankfurter Straße. Leopold Halberstadt's two sons, Alex Siegfried (1847-1926) and Jean Adolph (1849-1926), earned their living as insurance agents.

Richard Halberstadt, born on September 27, 1889, was the second son of Alex Siegfried Halberstadt and his wife Klara, née Goldschmidt. On August 1, 1921, Richard married Gerta Hirschfeld, a native of Berlin, born on March 30, 1889.

The couple lived at Frankfurter Straße 80 until September 1936, after which they moved to Frankfurter Straße 113. Their son Günter Halberstadt was born on November 23, 1923, but died on September 13, 1935 at the age of twelve.

Richard Halberstadt opened a company as an "agent for the sale of industrial products" at Frankfurter Straße 78 on November 4, 1920. After the death of his father, he also took over his father's insurance agency in 1926. Richard Halberstadt was forced to close both companies on December 5, 1938 and May 16, 1939 due to the "Decree on the Elimination of Jews from German Economic Life". In September 1939, Richard and Gerta Halberstadt moved into the Schloß family home at Frankfurter Strasse 99.

Charlotte Hirschfeld, presumably Gerta Halberstadt's older sister, was born on November 14, 1882 in Groß-Lichterfelde (Berlin). It is not known when and why she came to Offenbach. In June 1938, she also lived at Frankfurter Strasse 133 and moved with them to Frankfurter Strasse 99 in September 1939.

Fanny Halberstadt, born on December 18, 1888 as the daughter of Joseph Schloß (1857-1919) and his wife Marie, née Brüll (1866-1941), married Ernst Halberstadt (born on August 27, 1886), Richard's older brother, in 1920. Their father Josef Schloß had settled in Offenbach around 1880 and had been running a factory for the production of "travel souvenirs in bulk and gallantry goods" at Hospitalstraße 14 since 1895.

From 1908, the Schloß family lived in their own house at Frankfurter Strasse 99. Fanny's first marriage was to Hermann Mendel, with whom she had a son, Alfred Mendel (born on January 13, 1913). After Hermann Mendel's death, on November 3, 1920, she married Ernst Halberstadt, a businessman who also became a partner in Joseph Schloß & Co. In the course of the so-called Aryanization, the business was transferred to August Ritzel - the company's authorized signatory - on 13.08.1938.

Fanny's brother, the lawyer Ernst Schloß, emigrated to England with his wife and two children in 1939. Fanny and her husband stayed with her mother in Offenbach. Marie Schloß died there on November 4, 1941, Fanny's husband Ernst on February 20, 1942.

Fanny Halberstadt, her brother-in-law Richard and his wife Gerta as well as Charlotte Hirschfeld lived at Frankfurter Straße 99 until the time of their deportation. Together with many other Jewish people, they were deported from Darmstadt to Poland - presumably to Treblinka - on September 30, 1942, where they all perished.