Ernst Flersheim

Ernst Flersheim was a Frankfurt ivory dealer and the brother of Martin Flersheim. Flersheim and his wife had three children: Hans (1893-1933), Edith (1895-1992) and Margarete (1904-1940). In 1936 and 1937, the two Flersheim daughters fled to London and Brussels respectively, after Flersheim had negotiated with the German authorities about moving his business abroad in the years previously (1935-36). In 1937, he was forced to sell his art collection in order to emigrate to Amsterdam. In March 1937, Flersheim fled to the Netherlands with his wife initially remaining in Frankfurt. She joined her husband in Amsterdam one year later, in March 1938. Ernst Flersheim and his wife were caught up by the Nazis and he was murdered in the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen on 29 March 1944. Only their daughter, Edith Eberstadt-Flersheim, survived the war along with her family.   Ernst Flersheim’s art collection was dispersed. After the war his heirs negotiated with the Wuppertal Von der Heydt-Museum about the restitution of some of the artworks. Ernst Flersheim is registered in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Holocaust Survivors and Victims Database, see: https://www.ushmm.org/online/hsv/person_view.php?PersonId=5086057. Accessed 29 May 2021.