21 new Stolpersteine to be laid in Chemnitz on 5 December - 9 a.m. launch event at Geibelstraße 40

21 Stolpersteine will be added to the 195 already in place in Chemnitz on Thursday, 5 December. For more than 26 years, Stolpersteine have been commemorating people throughout Europe who were subjected to atrocities by the Nazis.

The initiative, launched by Cologne-based artist Gunter Demnig, is also supported by the city of Chemnitz. Since 2007, Stumbling Stones have been laid in Chemnitz in memory of people who suffered persecution under the Nazi regime or were murdered.

Mayor Barbara Ludwig will be present at the launch event at 9 a.m. at Geibelstraße 40. The Chemnitz Adult Education Centre has taken over the sponsorship of the first Stumbling Stone commemorating Gertrud Stern.

Media representatives are cordially invited to attend.

Procedure for laying the Stumbling Stones in Chemnitz on Thursday, 5 December 2019:

Start 9 a.m. - Geibelstraße 40

In the 1920s, the social democrat, freethinker and careers counsellor Gertrud Stern worked hard to ensure the success of the Chemnitz Adult Education Centre, which was founded in February 1919. She was the head of the "Working Group for Women". Until the adult education centre was dissolved in March 1933, she was one of the most important contacts for women's issues in Chemnitz. Due to her long-standing political commitment, Gertrud Stern was targeted by the Nazi authorities at an early stage and was therefore held in "protective custody" from 9 March to 5 November 1933. As a former city councillor, she was arrested again in July 1944 as part of "Aktion Gitter" and "narrowly escaped the concentration camp", as she later wrote. She died on 29 September 1977 in Karl-Marx-Stadt.

Around 9.50 a.m. - Yorckstraße 70

The Social Democrat Herbert Kaulfuß was born in 1912, the son of a stonemason. The family moved into a flat in the suburb of Gablenz at the end of the 1920s. Kaulfuß learnt the trade of a bricklayer. He was an early supporter of the aims of the Socialist Labour Youth. He earned lasting merit through the construction of the Keilberghütte, two kilometres from Oberwiesenthal, of which he was a financial backer. The builders were spied on by the National Socialists, persecuted and in some cases taken into "protective custody" as early as 1933, including Kaulfuß. He therefore decided to flee Germany at the end of 1933. Together with a carpenter friend, he boarded a passenger ship in Hamburg on 22 December 1933. During the crossing, he drowned off the coast of Brazil.

Approx. 10.30 am - Wiesenstraße 10 (formerly Wiesenstraße 52)

The Frisch family was one of the Jewish families in Chemnitz that were completely wiped out by the National Socialists during the Shoah. The travelling salesman Jakob Frisch had lived in Saxony since 1921. In spring 1923, he married Ryfka Kirschen in Vienna. From then on, he lived with his wife at Wiesenstraße 52, where their daughters Erika and Charlotte were born in the following years. Ryfka Frisch fell seriously ill around 1935 and was admitted to the Hochweitzschen state sanatorium at the end of 1936. From then on, the school-age daughters lived in the Jewish children's home in Leipzig. Jakob Frisch was arrested in January 1940 and sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Ryfka Frisch was murdered in Pirna-Sonnenstein on 19 July 1940 as part of the Nazi "T4" murder campaign. Jakob Frisch's life ended on 4 June 1941 in the same killing centre. Erika and Charlotte were deported from Leipzig on 10 May 1942 on a transport of central German Jews to the Belzyce ghetto near Lublin and murdered there.

Approx. 11 a.m. - Clara-Zetkin-Straße 1 (formerly Kasernenstraße)

Alice Glaser was the pioneer of the first Jewish kindergarten in Chemnitz. She came from a respected merchant family in the city. Her father was co-owner of the fashion house Gebr. Wertheimer on Johannisplatz, which was founded in 1889. Alice attended the girls' secondary school. On her 25th birthday, she married the doctor, social hygienist and social democrat Dr Kurt Glaser. The couple lived in Berlin for a while, where their daughter Marianne was born. Alice Glaser was one of the women who founded a local branch of the Jewish Women's Association in 1925. In this capacity, she was instrumental in the founding of the kindergarten in February 1927. Alice Glaser, who had studied at the Bauhaus from 1928, last lived in Berlin. On 14 November 1941, the 48-year-old was deported to the Minsk ghetto and murdered there.

Around 11.25 a.m. - Karl-Liebknecht-Straße, behind the opera house (formerly Bismarckstraße 9)

The watchmaker Lieber Löwi was one of the Jews from Chemnitz who recognised the potential dangers that threatened them and their families in view of the boycott measures already introduced in the Nazi state in spring 1933 and therefore turned their backs on the country at an early stage. In the spring of 1920, he married Ester Wurzel, the daughter of a merchant, in Chemnitz. In 1926, the couple found a suitable flat in the apartment block at Bismarckstraße 9. At this time, Lieber Löwi also took over the watchmaking business that his wife had built up. Their children started school at the end of the 1920s. The couple left the country in 1934 and decided to live in the Republic of Poland. No reliable statements can be made about their whereabouts. It is only known that they lived in Sędziszów in the autumn of 1940. The family was subsequently murdered in one of the countless ghettos or extermination camps in occupied Poland.

Approx. 12.05 pm - Bahnhofstraße 74 (formerly Lange Straße 12)

The doctor Dr Ernst Martin Müller was one of the many Jews in Germany who decided to "flee to their deaths" when faced with the threat of deportation. He studied medicine in Königsberg from 1901 to 1905. At the beginning of 1913, Dr Müller completed his specialist training in Breslau and then set up as a specialist for skin and venereal diseases in Chemnitz. His practice was located in the inner-city office building at Lange Straße 12. In autumn 1926, Dr Müller married the concert singer Helene Maria Winterer, a Christian, in Munich. In September 1938, the Nazi authorities revoked his licence to practise as a Jewish doctor. The couple then moved to Munich. When "Jewish transports" were assembled almost weekly in the summer of 1942, Dr Ernst Müller decided to commit suicide on 30 August 1942.

Approx. 12.30 pm - Parkstraße 48a

Fritz Bernstein was one of the German Jews who was prepared to fight against the Nazi state with a weapon in his hand. He grew up in a successful family of factory owners. Hans Bernstein, his father, had made a name for himself in the city when he had the architects Kornfeld and Benirschke build a modern factory building for his mechanical woollen goods factory on the site at Zwickauer Straße 173/175 in 1927. During the global economic crisis, the woollen goods factory went bankrupt. This also meant that the family had to give up their villa on Parkstraße in autumn 1934. They then emigrated to Holland. Fritz Bernstein moved to London in 1935. On 24 January 1940, he was accepted into the 97th Pioneer Corps of the British Army. His unit was stationed in the Cardiff area. He died in a military hospital on 4 August 1942 as a result of an infection.

Approx. 12.50 pm - Barbarossastrasse 55

The five-member Nussberg family was one of the Polish-Jewish families from Chemnitz who were arrested in the course of the "Polen-Aktion" (1938) and deported to their supposed homeland, where they were murdered in one of the numerous Nazi ghettos or extermination camps after 1941. The merchant Samuel Aron Nussberg had lived in Chemnitz since November 1922. In the summer of 1923, he opened a hosiery shop in the Reitbahn district. The following year, he married Frieda Avramovici here. The couple had three children, Rachela, Manfred Moses and Fany Rosa. In the mid-1930s, the family finally found a suitable flat on Kaßberg. On 28 October 1938, the Nussberg family was taken to Poland by the Reichsbahn, where they found a place to live in Krakow. On 17 February 1941, the couple and their children were deported to the Leibitsch camp. After that, their trail is lost.

Approx. 1.20 pm - Erich-Mühsam-Straße 18 (formerly Hohenzollernstraße 18)

In his first novel "Nicht alle waren Mörder - Eine Kindheit in Berlin" (1999), actor and writer Michael Degen describes the fate of a Jew in the Nazi state. In it, he also describes the terrible fate of his father. The textile merchant Jacob Degen had married Anna Rosalia Rudolf in Chemnitz at the end of 1922. The couple had two sons. The family had lived in Kaßberg since the late 1920s. They later moved to Berlin-Tiergarten. Jacob Degen was arrested on 13 September 1939 and deported to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he was severely mistreated in the weeks that followed. The father of the family was released on 2 February 1940. Despite intensive care, Jacob Degen never recovered from his injuries. Michael Degen noted in his novel: "He died after two months in terrible agony" in the Jewish Hospital in Berlin.

Approx. 1.45 pm - Flemmingstraße 8

Günter Heinz Neubauer and Adele Prager were murdered in the former Pirna-Sonnenstein State Hospital as part of the Nazi "T4" programme. Due to their state of health, they spent some time in the Chemnitz-Altendorf State Educational Centre. Günter Neubauer was transferred from there to the Arnsdorf state institution on 30 May 1940, where an "intermediate institution" was located on the way to a violent death. Just six weeks later, the eleven-year-old boy was taken to Pirna-Sonnenstein with numerous other patients and gassed there on the same day.

Adele Prager, who was married to a Jewish merchant, had been in the Leipzig-Dösen State Hospital since 1907 due to an incurable nervous disorder. At the end of 1939, she was transferred to Chemnitz-Altendorf. From there, the mother of two sons was transferred to Hubertusburg on 29 May 1940 and three months later to Großschweidnitz, where there were further "intermediate institutions". On 25 September 1940, Adele Prager was taken to the Pirna-Sonnenstein "euthanasia" institution and murdered there.