39 The first pharmacy in Ramsbeck and the department stores‘ of the John Marcus family

The Marcus department stores‘ soon gained a large clientele in Ramsbeck. The family was apparently very popular and well integrated among the residents because of their helpfulness and social attitude.
During the Reich Pogrom Night („Kristallnacht“) on 9 November 1938, the family members were massively threatened, and the residential and commercial building as well as the warehouse were considerably damaged by the Nazi troops. This then also meant the end of John Marcus‘ business, which had existed in Ramsbeck for about 40 years.
Later, the Konsum -Genossenschaft took over the shop and set up a grocery shop in it.

Here stood the merchant’s and residential house of the Jewish Marcus family, who settled in Ramsbeck around 1900. The owner, John Marcus, was born on 11 September 1863 in Malchin (Mecklenburg). He married Antonie (Toni) Meyer, herself a native of Alfhausen, in Alfhausen/County of Bersenbrück on 2 July 1901.

The marriage produced three daughters: Clara, born 31 May 1902, Paula, born 5 August 1903 and Mathilde (Hilde), born 28 April 1908. König Ludwig Heimes Junkern) Königin Paula Marcus1929 / 30
39 The first pharmacy in Ramsbeck and the department stores‘ of the John Marcus family
The Marcus department stores‘ soon gained a large clientele in Ramsbeck. The family was apparently very popular and well integrated among the residents because of their helpfulness and social attitude.

During the Reich Pogrom Night („Kristallnacht“) on 9 November 1938, the family members were massively threatened, and the residential and commercial building as well as the warehouse were considerably damaged by the Nazi troops. This then also meant the end of John Marcus‘ business, which had existed in Ramsbeck for about 40 years.
Later, the Konsum -Genossenschaft took over the shop and set up a grocery shop in it.

John Marcus died on 26 July 1936 in Ramsbeck, buried in the Jewish cemetery in Meschede. The youngest daughter, Hilde Marcus, emigrated to Palestine in 1935. Antonie and her daughters Clara and Paula were deported in 1942, Antonie via Theresienstadt to Treblinka, where she was murdered in September 1942. Her two daughters have been missing ever since.
The shop run by John Marcus offered a relatively wide range of goods: food, textiles, linen, porcelain, fertiliser and animal feed, and items for daily use.
The influx of many miners, but also the low mobility of the residents in Ramsbeck and the surrounding area – apart from the small railway, which only transported operating goods for the mining company and later, to a small extent, also people, there were few means of transport – may have persuaded Marcus to establish a shop in Ramsbeck.

On 1 July 1872, an official appeal appeared in the Mescheder Kreisblatt:

„A new independent pharmacy is to be established in each of the villages of Ramsbeck, Schalke and Bochum. The number of employees at the Ramsbeck mines and steelworks had made it necessary for the government to advertise for a pharmacy in Ramsbeck. The state concession was awarded to the pharmacist Carl Friedrich Mayer from Diersdorf (Westerwald) on 20 January 1874. He founded the first public pharmacy here on 4 December 1874. Mayer ran the pharmacy „with great zeal and interest“. Unfortunately, he died in 1878, after which ten people took over the administration of the pharmacy.

One of them was Dr. phil. Wenzel Schütte from Ibbenbüren. Dr. Schütte married the only daughter of the house, Katharina Mayer. On 9 June 1906, he was put in charge of the pharmacy. For 36 years, Dr. Schütte was a committed pharmacist for Ramsbeck and the surrounding area. For 20 years he was chairman of the „railway committee“, which sought a railway connection from Bestwig to Fredeburg. Because this was not successful, the mining company only built a private narrow-gauge railway to transport the ore concentrates away. Interestingly, this „little train“ was also used to transport medicines prescribed by a doctor to Bestwig in a closed container.