Ernst Morits Martin Horwitz

Ernst Morits Martin Horwitz was born on 17 May 1909 in Berlin as the son of the editor Georg Horwitz and his wife Elsa (née Norden). He attended pre-school at the Kaiser-Friedrich-Schule in Charlottenburg from 1915 to 1918, the Askanisches Gymnasium in Berlin from 1918 to 1926 and finally the Vereinigte Friedrichs- und Humboldt-Gymnasium from 1926 to 1928, from which he graduated with a "good" school leaving certificate. "I then devoted myself to studying economics, history and pure philosophy at the universities of Würzburg, Marburg and Berlin," wrote Ernst Horwitz in his CV for his doctorate^.1

He studied at the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin for five semesters from 1930 to 1933, where he wrote his dissertation in his main subject of economics entitled "Tasks and significance of stock market reporting" and dedicated it to his father.

On 13 April 1934, the Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy wrote to Ernst Horwitz, who lived at Belle-Alliance-Platz 13 (now Mehringplatz) in Berlin at the time, that the "Minister of Science, Art and National Education has approved your admission to doctoral studies as a non-Aryan"^.2 Only after this letter could the dissertation be assessed and, following the oral examination on 10 May 1935, could Ernst Horwitz be awarded his doctorate^.3

Ernst Horwitz subsequently fled from Germany to the Netherlands. On 1 February 1941, he and his wife Anna Horwitz-Kahn (born on 18 January 1915 in Riga) lived together with their child at Achillesstraat 70 I in Amsterdam. Ernst Horwitz is said to have worked there as an accountant^.4

According to the Mauthausen Concentration Camp Memorial, Ernst Horwitz died on 9 October 1941 in the Mauthausen main camp of "acute yellow liver trophism", although there is no record of when and how he was admitted to the concentration camp with the prisoner number 3072^.5

His wife Anna Horwitz-Kahn was murdered in the Sobibor extermination camp on 11 June 1943. The couple's child is said to have survived the Second World War^.6