Erich Bloch trained as a graphic designer at the Berlin Art School. During the First World War, he had to work in his parents’ wholesale glass business to support his widowed mother. Bloch was not drafted into the military, since he had had a disability since birth. From 1924 he worked as a freelance artist for advertising and the press. Before 1933 he was a member of the League of Human Rights and the Red Aid organization. From 1938 he was banned from working in his profession because he was Jewish.
Bloch went underground in around February 1943. Various friends gave him accommodation. The most important was the taxi driver Klara Jung, known as Kläre, a longstanding friend. He hid in her apartment on Horstweg in Charlottenburg for a long time, and also experienced the liberation there.
After the war, Erich Bloch opened an art school. Soon after marrying Klara Jung in 1955, he suffered a stroke. His wife cared for him until his death in 1965.