Beer, Alexander

Alexander Beer studied architecture in Berlin and Darmstadt, and after practicing several years in Mainz, he was appointed director of the building office of the Jewish Community of Berlin, then the largest such community in Europe. In that function he was responsible for the design and realization of the Jewish Community’s major building projects, including the Jewish Orphanage in Pankow, the Orthodox synagogue in Kreuzberg (destroyed 1938, side wing preserved), the synagogue in Wilmersdorf (destroyed 1938, demolished 1958), and the Jewish retirement home in Schmargendorf, as well as other renovations and new construction.
In 1943 Alexander Beer was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, where he died in 1944. His wife died in 1941; his daughter reached England in 1939 with a Kindertransport and subsequently immigrated to Australia, where she now lives.