Max Zellmann was born on March 12, 1928 in Frankfurt/Main. When he was three years old, his mother was admitted to the Weilmünszter Sanatorium. She remained there from March 1933 until February 7, 1941. From there, she was taken to the Hadamar killing centre and was probably murdered on the same day.
His father, Icyk, was not a German citizen and was forced to leave Germany in 1933. In 1944, he went to Palestine.
Max arrived at the Home 'Isenburg' from Frankfurt/Main on March 31, 1933, together with his sister hella Zellmann. Hella Zellmann is also listed in this memorial book.
On April 30, 1934, Max arrived in the children's home in Dietz. A year later, on August 20, 1935, he had to leave the children's home because the Nazis forcibly cleared it and the residents were forced to flee. He was taken to the orphanage on Röderbergweg in Frankfurt/Main.
On November 11, 1938, his sister Hella also arrived at this home after the nazis had destroyed the main building of the Home 'Isenburg', where the schoolchildren had been housed.
On December 6, 1938, Max and Hella Zellmann fled the orphanage along with other children and were taken to France on a Kindertransport. There, they were hidden by the children’s rescue organization “Œuvre de secours aux enfants (OSE)” at the Le Couret children’s home in Saint-Laurent-les-Églises. In 1941, they were hidden at the Château de Couret in the Haute-Vienne department in the Pyrenees. He crossed the Pyrenees and arrived in Cádiz, Spain.
He was rescued and brought to Palestine through the Youth Aliyah program.
Max Zellmann, who called himself Mordechai Yaron in Israel, founded a kibbutz in southern Israel (Kibbutz Gevim). He married Ilana Bodenheimer, who was born in Niederhöchstadt in 1928 and had come to Israel with him in 1944. The couple had two children. They left the kibbutz. Max studied landscape architecture, founded his own firm, and designed many significant sites in southern Israel, including residential neighborhoods, universities, and kibbutzim.
He lived to be 90 years old and died in 2019.
Sources: Stadtarchiv Neu-Isenburg; thanks to his daughter, Dorit Yaron, and Dr. Lothar Tetzner, this biography could be completed.
State: 07/05/2026 (EEP)
