Julius Krebs came from a widely branched Jewish family in Reichenberg near Würzburg in Lower Franconia. He was born there on February 5, 1890 as the son of the cattle dealer Jakob Krebs and his wife Sali, née Frank who was born in Estenfeld. In 1908/09, after his education at school and as an apprentice, he worked as a sales assistant in the firm “Lein & Steinberg” in Würzburg.

In May 1921, Julius Krebs married Martha Eberhardt from Maßbach, a baker’s daughter. He moved to Bad Kissingen with her, where in 1923, their son Werner Jakob was born. Julius Krebs is described as a “merchant” of a “textile representation” in the directories of the following years.

The family very early decided on emigration. As early as in December 1934, the Krebs couple and their 12-year-old son, who at that time attended class 2 of Kissingen Realschule, emigrated to Palestine where they found an apartment in Tel Aviv. In Palestine, in 1937, father and son had their passports extended at the German Consulate in Jaffa and applied for a children’s ID card, respectively.

Obviously, the family made up their minds not to stay in Palestine permanently. Instead, they decided to go to Martha’s parents and her sister Nelly in America. From Palestine they travelled to England, where the set out on July 6, 1938 on board the passenger steamer “Aquitania” and went from Southampton to New York where they arrived six days later.

That way, the families of Eberhardt/ Krebs reunited in the New World after years of being separated. Obviously, they easily got used to the new situation, certainly also because Julius and his son Werner soon found well-paid jobs as whitewashers.

Julius Krebs died in New York in August 1963 at the age of 73.

Julius Krebs’ 87-year-old widowed mother Sali Krebs was deported together with other relatives of the Krebs family from Würzburg to Theresienstadt in September 1942 and died there in February 1943.