Not far from the new synagogue you will find Maximilianstraße, formerly the fanciest shopping boulevard of Regensburg. Nine stumbling stones have been laid at the corner of Königstraße. The stones commemorate the families Holzinger and Brandis who ran and owned a popular textile store, plus a thriving textile wholesale business in this building, under the name "Weiß und Holzinger". Ottmar Holzinger, just like Josef Lilienfeld, was well-established and well-connected, and highly regarded in business circles.
In the pogrom night of November 9, 1938, the next level of escalation was reached, when at two o’clock in the morning a squad of the SS (led by a former custodian in the Holzinger store) raided the family villa in the Weißenburgstraße 25, smashed every single window and devastated the entire house, leaving it in shambles. They left behind a scene of destruction, and then dragged Mr. and Mrs. Holzinger into the Gestapo quarters – the Brandis family suffered a similar night of horrors.
"Aryanization" followed, robbing the Brandis and the Holzingers of everything: of their real estate, of their businesses, and of their money - which was frozen in special accounts from which they could only withdraw small sums, insufficient for emigration. Having been stripped of all means, Ottmar and Daniela Holzinger were deported to Theresienstadt/Terezín in September 1942 where both perished in 1944, due to the appalling conditions. The sister-in-law, Gisela Holzinger and her daughter Alice, together with her husband Karl Brandis plus their four children were deported to Piaski in April 1942, and most presumably, were gassed in the Sobibór extermination camp.
