Josef Straus was one of the Jewish students who came from the rural surroundings of the Rhön Hills and attended Kissingen Realschule for some years. He was born in Steinach on February 22, 1885 as the son of the cattle dealer Juda Straus and his wife Hanna, née Gessner.

In April 1899, he entered class 4 of Bad Kissingen Realschule and graduated from it in July 1901. During that time, he lived with Isak Losmann in Hemmerichstrasse.

From 1911 to 1914, Josef Straus lived in Switzerland for professional reasons. He took part in World War I from 1915 to 1918 as a front fighter. After the end of the war he returned to Steinach for a short time and worked as a flour dealer there. In July 1919, he married Munich-born Lilly Oberzimmer, whose father Salomon Oberzimmer came from a long-established Jewish family of Bad Kissingen. After the marriage, Josef Straus moved to Munich and initially worked as a merchant in the firm of his father-in-law Salomon Oberzimmer (1920 Registry) that dealt with cigars and raw tobacco. Since 1920, he ran a commission representation for tobacco products (Fa. Joseph Straus), first in Mozartstrasse, later in Kyreinstrasse.

In 1922, Josef’s son Alfred was born who died only few weeks later. The couple lived in Munich till September 1940 and could flee from Germany in the last minute. In Japanese Yokohama, they went on board the “Heian Maru” and arrived in Seattle in the State of Washington/ USA at the end of October 1940. There, they were taken up by Josef’s brother Heinrich who had been able to emigrate to New York in 1937. The Straus couple settled in Los Angeles where Josef Straus worked as a nurse in a Jewish hospital.

Josef Straus died there shortly before his 75^th birthday in February 1960, his wife outlived him till October 1973.

The younger brothers of his wife, Ludwig and Theodor Oberzimmer, had been living in exile in Belgium after the beginning of the war. After the German invasion on May 10, 1940, they were first deported to Saint Cyprien Camp/ Southern France and later to Gurs. In 1942, they were deported from the collective camp of Drancy to Auschwitz/ Oświęcim Extermination Camp and murdered there.