Gerd Bonwit
1913 - 2004

Gerd Bonwit was born in Frankfurt am Main on May 15, 1913, the son of the merchant Otto Bonwit (1871-1933) and Irma Bonwit, née Bär (1888-1971). He had three siblings: Erika (1915-1987), who emigrated to what was then Palestine in 1934 and married the physician Dr. Karl Wolff (1900-1984) in 1936, Ralf Bernhard (1910-1988) and Lisa (1917-2006), who were both later able to emigrate to England (1934 and 1937 respectively). According to the Frankfurt address book of 1912, the family lived at "Auf der Körnerwiese 12" in Frankfurt's Westend district. In 1919, the family moved into a detached house at Grüneburgweg 117, which they were forced to sell at the beginning of 1936.
Gerd Bonwit attended the Adlerflychtschule (elementary school) from 1919 to 1922, then the Goethegymnasium in Frankfurt until the lower grades (1930) and then the Höhere Handelsschule for a year. From April 1931, Gerd Bonwit worked for a year as an apprentice in a Worms specialist store for household and porcelain goods, followed by several months as a trainee at the Deutsche Effekten- und Wechselbank in Frankfurt am Main.

In October 1932, he started working for his father's company, which employed over 60 people at the time. He worked in all departments and eventually became his father's assistant. Gerd Bonwit was to be prepared to take on a leading position in the "Porzellan-Bär" company in the medium term. The business, located at Stiftstraße 8-10 in Frankfurt, operated as a "specialty store for glass, porcelain, household and kitchen appliances". It was regarded as one of the largest specialty stores in southern Germany in this area.
Through his marriage to Irma Bär in 1909, Gerd Bonwit's father Otto became a partner in the company "Porzellan-Bär", which was founded in 1897 by his father-in-law Moses (called Moritz) Bär. After Moritz Bär's death in 1925, Otto Bonwit continued to run the business alone. The committed Frankfurt citizen was active for many years on the board of the Westend Synagogue and on the community council of the Frankfurt Israelite community, as a school board member at the Philantropin, Frankfurt's most important Jewish school, as a commercial court councillor and as an employer representative at the employment office and the local health insurance fund. He died in his house at Grüneburgweg 117 on July 24, 1933, when the police and Gestapo carried out a harassing house search. Gerd Bonwit and his sisters Erika and Lisa witnessed this incident.

After the death of his father in July 1933, Leopold Bär, the brother of company founder Moritz Bär, initially took over the management of the company.
At the end of April 1935, Gerd Bonwit had to end his work at "Porzellan-Bär", as the boycott of Jewish businesses began on April 1, 1933, causing a massive slump in sales at his parents' business. Due to the overwhelming economic difficulties that apparently resulted from this, Leopold Bär took his own life in the business premises in Stiftstraße on March 23, 1936.
The "Porzellan-Bär" company was deleted from the commercial register on July 13, 1936. The new "owner" was Johann Handel (Frankfurt an der Oder), who only took over the previous owner's warehouse. The change in the commercial register took place on March 22, 1939 under "Johann Handel, Frankfurt am Main, Stiftstr. 8-10 or Brönnerstr. 5-9".
As the decline of his father's company was already apparent, Gerd Bonwit attempted to emigrate to the USA a few months before his employment at "Porzellan-Bär" ended, but this failed. An uncle living in New York was unable to issue him with the required affidavit, which was absolutely necessary for entry into the USA.

From May 1935 to March 1936, Gerd Bonwit then completed an apprenticeship at the State Technical College for the Textile Industry in Reutlingen, which he completed with a diploma as a weaving technician. He was denied further training as a textile engineer due to the increasingly strict measures against Jews.
In his curriculum vitae, Gerd Bonwit writes that after obtaining his diploma, his practical training took him to several companies. He initially worked in Reutlingen (Weberei Gebr. Frankfurter) and Chemnitz (Sächsische Webstuhlfabrik) until his further career path took him to Switzerland, where he gained further practical knowledge in three companies (Tuchfabrik Sevelen in Sevelen, Gesellschaft für chemische Industrie in Basel and J.R. Geigy, also in Basel).
Finally, in August 1938, he emigrated to Argentina, where his mother Irma followed him in 1940. His start in this country was very difficult. He had to catch up on his lack of professional knowledge in evening classes and finally received a diploma as a technician for industrial chemistry from the "Politecnico Norberto Pinero" in December 1943.

After 1943, Gerd Bonwit was employed by various companies in Argentina. According to his own statement, his remuneration was "inadequate" over the years. It was only after he decided to become a self-employed sales representative in 1952 that his financial situation gradually improved.
On April 30, 1953, he married Sigrid Eva Paulina, née Burghardt, who was born on October 6, 1927 in Halle an der Saale. The marriage produced two children. Nothing is known about Gerd Bonwit's subsequent life. He died in Buenos Aires on August 28, 2004, his wife Sigrid died there on January 13, 2000.

Gerd Bonwit joined the Frankfurt am Main section in 1932. His guarantors cannot currently be identified, as the corresponding newsletters of the section are no longer available. Nothing is known about Gerd Bonwit's alpinist or club activities.
Whether he was expelled from the Alpine Club or gave up his membership before his emigration in 1938 is also unknown. After the amendment to the statutes passed at the beginning of 1934, so-called "non-Aryans" were no longer allowed to remain in the Frankfurt section unless they had been "front-line fighters" in the First World War or had already been a member of the section before 1914. Neither of these was the case for Gerd Bonwit.
His father Otto Bonwit was also a member of the Frankfurt Section. He joined the section in 1913, but is no longer listed in the 1925 directory of section members. Instead, his name appears in the November 1930 news sheet of the Frankfurt section of the German and Austrian Alpine Club alongside Dr. Walter Bing as guarantor for Gerd's brother Ralf Bernhard Bonwit, then a student. As Otto Bonwit is not to be found among the new members since October 1926, he must have rejoined the Section between March 1925 and October 1926. Otto Bonwit may also have recommended that his second son Gerd join. Otto Bonwit did not resign from the Frankfurt Section before his death in July 1933. Rather, his death was commemorated at the annual general meeting on May 28, 1934. Accordingly, he is listed by name as a deceased former member on the first page of the June 1934 newsletter.