Nathan Israel Department Store

[4] Later that year the company was handed over by the Nazis to the non-Jewish Emil Köster AG, and in 1939 it reopened as Das Haus im Zentrum, its "Aryanization" complete, according to the Israel family's papers.

Schloss Schulzendorf was in East Berlin after World War II but in 1993 it was repossessed by the German government and returned to descendants of the Israel family.

[5] Following the takeover of the store, Wilfrid Israel, who had run the business with his brother, emigrated to England, where he took up a research position at Balliol College, Oxford.

From there, he tried to establish contact with the German underground through Sir Stafford Cripps, Britain's foreign minister, and organized ship transports for Jewish children escaping from Europe.

Thus the Israel family, the previous owners, began to receive compensation for their financial losses only after the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and German reunification.