Max Scher was born in Swienciany near Wilna/ Vilnius in Lithuania (which belonged to the realm of the Russian Czar then) on May 13, 1893 as the oldest child of Noah Scher and his wife Fanny, née Zerkinsky. His father Noah worked as a fisherman there. In 1899, he decided to move to Würzburg with his family in order to earn his living as a tradesman at markets and fairs.

In 1903, the Schers opened a seasonal business for “Partiesachen” (sorted out textiles reduced in price) in Bad Kissingen. During the summer, they lived in Bad Kissingen, in the winter they stayed in Würzburg until they moved to Kissingen for good in 1916. As Jews from Eastern Europe they had a special status in the Jewish community of Bad Kissingen.

Max Scher, who worked as a merchant, married Perla (Pesla) Singer, who had been born in the Ukranian town of Mosciska west of Lemberg/ Lwiw. They got married in Munich in 1919. In 1921, their daughter Cilli was born in Kempten. In 1927, their second daughter Ella was born in Berlin where the Schers had moved from Bavaria. Max Scher, his wife Pesla and their two daughters were deported from Berlin to Auschwitz/ Oświęcim Extermination Camp in Spring 1943, where his wife Pesla and the two daughters were killed. For Yad Vashem, Bertha Murray dedicated memorial sheets for them. As she called herself a daughter of Pesla Scher, the Schers must obviously have had a further daughter who emigrated to England in time and married there.

According to information from the family, Max Scher survived Auschwitz/ Oświęcim Extermination Camp. There is another proof of that in the residents’ list of the Federal Archive. In October 1949, he married Anna Luise Cicinka, who was born in Königsberg/East Prussia, in Berlin-Mitte. Max Samuel Scher later lived in Berlin Buckow and died in Berlin-Mariendorf in April 1969 at the age of 75, according to the Berlin-Tempelhof register.