In Bad Kissingen, Sally Mayer was a board member of the “Reichsbund Jüdischer Frontsoldaten” and - like many other Jews – from 1926 to 1928, a member of the liberal “Deutsche Demokratische Partei” (DDP=German Democratic Party) that supported the republican system of government. In 1931, he published his scholarly text “Paracelsus – der Badearzt und Balneologe seiner Zeit” (Paracelsus – the spa doctor and balneologist of his time). Despite the official “Verordnung über die Zulassung von Ärzten zur Tätigkeit bei den Krankenkassen” (Regulation on the admission for doctors to work for health insurances), published on April 22, 1933, which amounted to about the same as a “Berufsverbot” (ban forbidding the practice of one’s profession), Sally Mayer got an exemption from it as a front soldier World War I of outstanding merit. But the riots against the Jews also began in Bad Kissingen, nevertheless, and on the evening of January 15, 1935 shots were fired twice from the street into the sitting room of the house of Bretzfelder/ Mayer.

After the “Nuremberg Laws” had come into effect in September 1935, discrimination increased, the number of Mayer’s patients decreased, and his income abated but he kept on practicing in difficult conditions. It was the “Vierte Verordnung zum Reichsbürgergesetz” (fourth regulation of the law for the citizens of the Reich) of July 25, 1938 that made his license to practice medicine expire by September 30. From then on, he – who was nearly 50 at that time – could only treat Jewish patients In Bad Kissingen and its vicinity as a so-called “Krankenbehandler” (person treating ill people). By October 26, 1938 the couple and their in-laws lived in Adolf-Hitler-Strasse 12 (now Kurhausstrasse 12).

In the Pogrom Night of November 9, 1938, he belonged to those 28 Kissingen Jews who were taken into “Schutzhaft” (protective custody). At the beginning, he was taken to Würzburg, later into Dachau Concentration Camp. When he was still in Würzburg he had to promise during his interrogation by Gestapo on November 14, 1938 to emigrate to America as fast as possible. In the time till his emigration he wanted to take on the management of an Israelite Old People’s Home in Frankfurt/ Main. Only four weeks after his delivery into the Concentration Camp, Sally Mayer like all the soldiers who had been awarded the Front Fighters’ Cross was released from Dachau because of a special decree by Göring. He had the obligation, however, to care for all the Jewish sick people in and around Bad Kissingen till his emigration. But all his efforts to emigrate to a cousin in the USA were without success: The passports he had applied for in February 1939 for himself and his wife didn’t arrive.

On March 15, 1939 Dr. Sally Mayer became – after he had applied for it at Gestapo in February – the successor of Dr. Bernhard Gutmann as a “Krankenbehandler” in Würzburg and took on the management of the Hospital and Old People’s Home of the Israelite “Kranken- und Pfründnerhausstiftung” (foundation for the care of sick people and the prebendary house) in the suburb of Frauenland in Dürerstrasse 20. Mayer’s private home was next to it in Konradstrasse 7, in front of which a Stumbling Stone was planted some time ago in memory of Sally Mayer. The rest of Mayer’s fortune was “Aryanized”. When the transports to the concentration camps started in 1941, the medical and emotional care at Würzburg Station and at the collection point for all Jews of Mainfranken (Franconia along the Main River) belonged to his tasks. 

On September 23, 1942 he and his wife Irma – as a consequence of his own application for a “Verlegung des Wohnsitzes” (change of their place of residence) – accompanied his group of mostly old and helpless patients that had been left over into Theresienstadt Concentration Camp. Knowing that his deportation was imminent, he asked the official bodies for an expansion of the regulations for luggage in order to be able to take his medical equipment with him and continue his work as a doctor in the concentration camp. But his complete equipment and what was left of his fortune were seized. Nevertheless, Dr. Sally Mayer worked as a doctor in Theresienstadt Concentration Camp and was supported by his wife Irma as a nurse. After a two years’ stay, Sally and Irma Mayer were deported to Auschwitz/ Oświęcim Extermination Camp on October 19, 1944. Both of them died there, Dr. Sally Mayer is officially regarded as “missing in Auschwitz”.

(Sigismund von Dobschütz)