At the beginning of the German occupation, it became harder and harder for Jewish people to sustain trades and do business. When Nazi antisemitic laws came into force in Luxembourg, many Jewish companies suffered a great economic loss because Jewish stores were marked by slanderous signs saying: ,,Don’t buy anything from a Jew.”
From 1940 to 1941, Jewish shops and businesses were closed or Aryanized: new non-Jewish owners took over them and changed their names to German: e. g. “Maison Moderne” turned into “Modernes Kaufhaus”, a well-known business Rosenstiel turned into “Neuzeit” and “À la Bourse” was renamed to “Zur Börse.”
Several Jewish businessmen managed to flee with their families before the Nazi occupation and some fled the country after May 10, 1940 but some were caught later while fleeing abroad and were deported to the East (Jacques and Régine Rosenstiel-Schwarz or brothers Robert and Raoul Bonn.) Besides them, there were also those who fought on the side of the Allies such as René Bermann from the business "Tissus Max Kahn".