Alice Scherk née Carsch

Alice Scherk, née Carsch, was a singer and member of the Albersheim family of renowned Frankfurt-based cosmetic manufacturers. Alice Carsch’s uncle, Moritz Albersheim, founded the perfumery Dr. M. Albersheim in 1892.
In 1911 Alice married Ludwig Scherk, a former employee of her uncle who had opened his own perfumery in Berlin. Initially they sold soaps, perfume and cosmetics by Dr. M. Albersheim, but later they created their own products. Scherk became the third largest brand on the German cosmetics market, after Schering and Nivea. The company’s headquarters were at Kelch Strasse 31 in Steglitz-Südende.
“A few times now, we have been so depressed that we considered emigrating, but one is attached with every fibre to this German soil,” Alice Scherk wrote in her diary. In 1934 she took her own life. She was survived by her two sons, Fritz and Walter, as well as her husband Ludwig. The cosmetics factory was ‘Aryanized’ before being almost completely destroyed in the war. Ludwig Scherk managed to escape to London, where he died in 1946. Their son Fritz survived by joining the French Foreign Legion, despite his pacifist convictions, and fled North Africa, where he was stationed, via Egypt to Israel. After the war he rebuilt his parents’ company.