23 new Stolpersteine are laid

On Tuesday, 17 May, from 11.30 a.m., 23 new Stolpersteine will be laid at twelve locations in the city. For 15 years, the city of Chemnitz has been using this project to commemorate the people who were persecuted, expelled, murdered or driven to their deaths by the National Socialists in the city.

Representatives of the media are cordially invited to the ceremony. The meeting point is at Börnichsgasse 1.

Dagmar Ruscheinsky, Mayor for Education, Social Affairs, Youth, Culture and Sport, will welcome those present. The artist Gunter Demnig, who initiated the Stolpersteine art project and now carries it out worldwide, will be present at the first eight stations in Chemnitz and will lay the stones himself.

At 11.30 a.m., the first Stolperstein will be dedicated to Leon Jessel, who worked as second conductor and choir director at Chemnitz City Theatre from 1897 to 1900. After being arrested by the Gestapo in Berlin in 1941, he was so badly mistreated that he died shortly afterwards. The reason for his arrest was a letter in which he criticised the incitement of Jews.

Matthias Repovs, Chairman of the Chemnitz Opera Choir, will speak about Leon Jessel's biography. The choir has taken on the sponsorship of the Stolperstein and will be organising the opening programme.

Lord Mayor Sven Schulze: "The Stumbling Stones project tells the story of personal fates who had to suffer the terror of the Nazi regime. The individual biographies clearly show the cruelty of systematic marginalisation, incitement and dictatorial despotism. A democratic society must face up to these abysses, show responsibility and, ideally, learn something from them."

The laying of the Stumbling Stones is being organised by the Stumbling Stones Working Group under the direction of the City of Chemnitz. The VVN-BdA, various administrative offices and the historian Dr Jürgen Nitsche are involved in the Stolperstein working group.


The laying route after the kick-off at 11.30 a.m. in Börnichsgasse is planned as follows:

12 noon - Holzmarkt 15, now Rosenhof 1a

Jenny Olga Fleischer, née Cohn, lived with her daughter Ilse Margarethe Fleischer at Holzmarkt 15 and ran the "Schuhhaus für Alle" shop there after the death of her husband. In 1933, it was put on the list of Jewish businesses, lawyers and doctors to be boycotted. Jenny and Ilse Fleischer took their own lives before the business was taken over by a public limited company from Stuttgart.

Godparents: Frank Müller-Rosentritt (Member of the Bundestag), Andrea Wagner

12.40 pm - Andréstraße 39

Werner Michaelis Götz was taken into "protective custody" during the November pogrom in 1938 and deported to the special pogrom camp in Buchenwald. This was followed by forced labour in the Richard Theyson brickworks in Borna. From 1940, he was in various Jewish retraining and labour camps until he was deported to Auschwitz in 1943. He died there a short time later of typhus. Relatives from Israel will be present at the ceremony.

Sponsor: Dr.-Wilhelm-André-Gymnasium

1.10 pm - Heinrich-Beck-Straße 7

Max Geller owned a hosiery factory in Niederzwönitz. He lived at Heinrich-Beck-Straße 7 with his wife Miriam Paula Margarete Geller, née Götz, and his children Bracha Brigitte Ingeborg Geller (later married Dana), Baruch Bernard Richard Geller and Ruth Geller. In August 1935, the family emigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine. Relatives from Israel will be present at the ceremony.

Sponsors: Georgius-Agricola-Gymnasium, Cordula and Marco Jerinic, Dr Yitzhak Dana and Raffi Dana, Eyal Geller and Yaron Geller

1.40 pm - Agricolastraße 13

Erich Wangenheim was elected the last chairman of the board of the Jewish Religious Community in Chemnitz in March 1939. Among other things, he ran a textile business and was later the director of an old people's and infirmary home. Together with his wife Ellen Wangenheim, née Tuchler, he was arrested by the Gestapo on 27 March 1943 and deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto after being imprisoned in Chemnitz and Dresden. Ellen Wangenheim died there of hunger and illness on 21 March 1944. Johanna Wangenheim, Erich's mother, had already been deported to the ghetto on 8 September 1942. She died there of old age. Erich Wangenheim returned to the badly destroyed Chemnitz in June 1945 and was one of the founding members of today's Jewish community in Chemnitz.

Godparents: Erika Schladitz, Dr Susanne Rippl, André Kühn

2.10 pm - Gerhart-Hauptmann-Platz 2

The two siblings Gerhart Sigler and Inge Sigler were able to emigrate to England by Kindertransport. Two Stumbling Stones have commemorated their parents Arthur and Hedwig Sigler since last year. Relatives from England will be present for the laying of the stones.

Sponsors: Nick Sigler, the Sanddorn class of the Montessori secondary school in Chemnitz

2.40 pm - Weststraße 65

Josef Kahn was the manager of a hosiery factory and was elected second chairman of the Jewish community in 1924. Three years later, he took over as chairman of the board. Immediately after the November pogrom of 1938, Kahn was arrested and deported to the "protective custody camp" in Buchenwald. In March 1939, he was able to emigrate to Palestine via Amsterdam and moved to Montreal in 1949.

Sponsor: Dr Peter Seifert

3.10 pm - Hoffmannstraße 52

The Jewish merchant Siegfried Friede owned the "Crefelder Seidenhaus", a fabric shop in the former Lange Straße 11. This shop was also on the boycott list of 1 April 1933 and was "Aryanised" in 1938. Together with his wife Erna Friede, née Ulrich, and his daughter Edith Friede, he wanted to emigrate in 1939, but was unable to do so. At least the daughter was able to be brought to England in May 1939 with the help of a Kindertransport. The couple, who had to move into a "Jewish house", were charged with foreign currency offences.
Siegfried Friede was sentenced to fines and imprisonment. The case against Edith Friede was dropped. Five days after the verdict was announced, she took her own life with sleeping pills. When her daughter in England learnt of her mother's fate, she also took her own life. Siegried Friede followed his wife and daughter to their deaths six months later.

Godparents: David Winkler, Simone Neubert, Ina Dobler and Michael Stellner

4.30 pm - Amalienstraße 62, now Tschaikowskistraße 62

Teacher Curt Walter Stopp was one of the many people who were discriminated against by the Nazi state due to mental illness or disability and murdered in one of the "euthanasia" centres. He suffered from depression, suicidal tendencies and hallucinations. On 11 September 1940, Walter Stopp and 70 other patients were transferred to the Pirna-Sonnenstein killing centre on a transport ("Aktion T4") for gassing and were most likely murdered there on the same day.

Sponsor: Günter Stopp (†)

5 pm - Geibelstraße 40

The Social Democrat Karl Dornburg was a member of the city council in Chemnitz in the 1920s. He was the partner of the Social Democrat Gertrud Stern, for whom a Stumbling Stone was laid two years ago. Dornburg left Chemnitz in March 1933 to escape the threat of "protective custody". Various routes took him to the former Czechoslovakia and Denmark. Karl Dornburg returned to Chemnitz on 5 October 1946, but died a few months later as a result of a deficiency disease.

Godparents: Dr Stephanie Pietsch and Sebastian Reichelt

5.30 pm - Gustav-Freytag-Straße 23, today near Gustav-Freytag-Straße 17

According to the National Socialists' Nuremberg Race Laws, the marriage between the Jewish merchant Norbert Stadthagen and Elfriede Stadthagen was considered a "mixed marriage". However, Elfriede Stadthagen refused to file for divorce, although she was repeatedly pressurised and house searches by the Gestapo were the order of the day. In February 1945, Stadthagen was picked up by the Gestapo and deported to Theresienstadt.
There he was one of the more than 1,500 victims of the typhus epidemic in the Theresienstadt ghetto, which raged there even after its liberation on 8 May 1945.

Sponsor: Rita Ebert

6 pm - Elisenstraße 23

Marie Spata and Josef Spata belonged to the city branch of the KPD. During National Socialism, they tried to organise resistance and reported, for example, on the actual course of the war, which they were able to overhear via the so-called enemy radio stations due to their knowledge of the language. They were therefore anonymously denounced to the Gestapo and arrested. It was a plot by several garden neighbours against Marie Spata.
She was transferred to the women's prison in Berlin and sentenced to death for subversion of defence forces. Marie Spata was executed on 9 June 1944.
The group Quijote (Sabine Kühnrich, Ludwig Streng, Wolfram Hennig-Ruitz) will perform a musical programme entitled "Ringing Memories" to mark the ceremony.

Sponsors: Manfred Spata, Kerstin Hauschild