25 new stumbling blocks are laid

On Wednesday, 14 June, from 9 a.m., 25 new Stolpersteine will be unveiled at eleven locations in Chemnitz. In total, more than 300 of the memorial stones in the city will commemorate the fates of people who were persecuted, deported, murdered or driven to their deaths during the National Socialist regime.
Family members, including some from the USA and Denmark, committed citizens, associations and pupils from three Chemnitz schools are sponsoring the stones, financing them and accompanying their laying in the city.

Representatives of the media are cordially invited to attend.

9 a.m., Brauhausstraße 19 - Kick-off event

The event will kick off at 9 a.m. with the dedication of the stumbling stone for Siegfried Lässig at Brauhausstraße 19. Siegfried Lässig was one of the anti-fascists from Chemnitz who were systematically persecuted by the Nazi regime and imprisoned almost continuously from 1933 to 1945. After an odyssey through prisons and concentration camps, he was liberated by the Red Army in a branch of Stutthof concentration camp in March 1945 and returned to Chemnitz.
Pupils from the Montessori secondary school in Chemnitz, who have also taken on the sponsorship of the stone, will accompany the ceremony with a programme. The Mayor for Education, Social Affairs, Youth, Culture and Sport, Dagmar Ruscheinsky, will welcome those present and Enrico Hilbert, Chairman of the VVN-BdA Chemnitz, will speak about the biography of the honoured person.

The other Stolpersteine will be laid along the following route:

9.40 a.m., Reichenhainer Straße 8

The self-employed watchmaker David Josef Bauer and his wife Gitel Bauer, née Weingast, were arrested in October 1938 and taken to Poland with their two younger children Max Bauer and Klara Bauer, née Margulies, where they lived in the Tarnopol ghetto from July 1941. Their daughter Klara was the only survivor and emigrated to the USA in 1949. Leopold Bauer, the eldest son, joined the German Socialist Labour Party in 1931 and later the KPD. He emigrated to France in 1933, survived internment and later imprisonment in Switzerland and returned to Germany in 1945. His daughter Adela Bauer, married name Haldane, managed to emigrate to Shanghai and from there to the USA in 1947.
Alongside other descendants of the family, Adela Bauer's son David Haldane and his daughter will be travelling from the USA to attend the laying of the Stumbling Stones. Pupils from Georgius Agricola Grammar School will accompany the laying of the stones with a short programme.

Sponsors: Franziska Plickat, Kollektiv 58, Michael Müller, Georgius-Agricola-Gymnasium, Susanna Herzog, Julia Plickat and Gayle Schreiber Margulies


10 a.m., Bernsdorfer Straße 1, today next to Ritterstraße 17

Under pressure from the National Socialists, pharmacist Max Tebrich was forced to give up the Rosen pharmacy he ran in Chemnitz in 1936 and leave the city together with his wife Marta Tebrich, née Heinemann. In Berlin, the couple were initially forced to move to a Jewish retirement home in November 1942, from where they were deported to Theresienstadt a few days later.

Godparents: Beate and Dr Bernd Flade, Stephan Lazarides


10.30 a.m., Heinrich-Beck-Straße 38, today at Heinrich-Beck-Straße 47

Elisabeth Chalybäus, who had previously worked as a private teacher, was transferred to the mental hospital in Hilbersdorf several times in the summer of 1921 due to the deterioration of her mental health, and finally to the sanatorium and nursing home in Zschadraß in April 1922. She remained there until 8 August 1940, when she was transported with 89 other patients to the Pirna-Sonnenstein killing centre and murdered.

Godparents: Gerhard Schwindt, Hans-Martin Schwindt and Dorothea Specht


10.50 a.m., Agricolastrasse 9

The merchant Wolf Joseph, owner of a company for upholstery fabrics and curtains, had four children with his wife Regina Joseph, née Krotoschin. After their divorce, the eldest daughter Hertha Richter, née Joseph, returned to live with her parents in Agricolastrasse, while her two sons emigrated to Palestine. She was deported to the East in July 1942. Their son Herbert Joseph founded his own company based in Chemnitz, which he was forced to sell after his arrest in 1938. He died in Buchenwald concentration camp in December 1941. His son Erich Karl Joseph was taken into "protective custody" during the pogroms on 12 November 1938 and was later transferred to Sachsenhausen, Dachau and finally Buchenwald, where he died in August 1941. Only his daughter Elsa managed to emigrate to England in 1939.
The parents finally lived in the "Jews' house" at Agricolastrasse 9, where the mother died as a result of a tragic household accident in March 1940. The widower Wolf Joseph, who was badly affected, last lived in the Jewish retirement home on Antonplatz, where he died in October 1942.

Godparents: Mike Wirrig, Susanne Stelzer, Ilka Lange, Ulrike Riethmüller and Thomas Wabst, private


11.10 a.m., Kurfürstenstraße 2, today Puschkinstraße 2

The Jewish merchant Hermann Goldschmidt converted to Protestantism in 1906, but suffered countless humiliations during the Nazi era due to his Jewish origins. His wife Gertrud Goldschmidt, née Zwicker, and their daughter Ruth Goldschmidt were only able to organise his funeral in 1939 at the Chemnitz municipal cemetery with great difficulty. Daughter Ruth was called up for forced labour as a half-Jew in 1944. Mother and daughter narrowly escaped deportation at the end of the war, but lost all their possessions on the night of the bombing on 5 March 1945.

Godparents: Dorte Munck, parish of St Jakobi-Kreuz Chemnitz, Mike Wirrig

The godmother Dorte Munck from Denmark, granddaughter of Hermann Goldschmidt's brother, is travelling with other family members to be present at the laying of the memorial stones.


1 pm, Flemmingstraße 4

Elisabeth Monika Hecht was one of the children who fell victim to National Socialist "euthanasia". Physically impaired from birth, she was admitted to the "paediatric ward" in Brandenburg-Görden by the authorities after being reported to the health authorities by the clinic, where she died at the age of just four months.
Godparents: Wollmann family


1.30 p.m., Lange Straße 33, today near Am Rathaus 8

Sally Gliksmann, a trained tailor and owner of a men's clothing shop in Chemnitz from 1926, supported the Chemnitz anti-fascists after the National Socialists came to power. After the November pogroms, he emigrated to Belgium; his wife Anna Gliksmann, née Freier, followed him a short time later with their daughter Ruth Gliksmann. The family was arrested there in December 1943, at the time of the occupation of Belgium by the German Wehrmacht, and deported to Auschwitz in January 1944. Sally Gliksmann survived the camp and the death march in 1945. He returned to Chemnitz in September 1945, where he rejoined the Jewish community and became active on the board. His wife and their daughter were murdered in Auschwitz.

Godparents: Raimund Köhnen, Manuela Köhnen, Oberschule Am Flughafen


1.50 pm, Annaberger Straße 200

The Chemnitz anti-fascist Emil Wallner was a member of the KPD (Communist Party of Germany) and was involved in the Chemnitz electricity works, where he was employed as a locksmith. After being dismissed without notice for his work for the Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition in 1933, he was arrested in 1935 for illegal work for the banned KPD. He was sentenced to two years and ten months in prison by the Dresden Higher Regional Court for "preparation for high treason". The severe abuse he suffered during his imprisonment led to his death in May 1937.

Sponsor: Christian Seeling


2.30 pm, Heimgarten 100

The successful merchant Julius Strauß was one of the Jewish soldiers who fought in the First World War. After the early death of his wife, the widower moved into the house at Heimgarten 100 with his two sons. He was arrested on 7 September 1935 and transferred to Sachsenburg concentration camp. After a brief release, he was arrested again on 10 November 1938 and taken to Buchenwald. He was released on 1 December on condition that he leave Germany. However, even in France he did not escape the terror of the regime and was deported to Auschwitz and murdered after his arrest in August 1942.

Sponsors: private


3.10 pm, Euba, No. 125, today Hauptstraße 137a

Hulda Hedwig Heinke, née Felber, grew up in Euba with five siblings and was brought up in the Protestant-Lutheran tradition by her parents. After marrying Ernst Heinke, the childless couple moved to Chemnitz. At the age of 45, she was admitted to the Chemnitz-Hilbersdorf municipal mental hospital due to the deterioration of a progressive nervous system disorder and was transferred from there to the state sanatorium and nursing home in Zschadraß shortly afterwards. On 10 July 1940, Hedwig Heinke was taken to the Pirna-Sonnenstein killing centre as part of "Aktion T4", where she was probably murdered with gas on the same day.

Godparents: Angela and Frank Hohaus


4 pm, adult education centre, TIETZ - closing event

Pupils from the Chemnitz School Model are exhibiting their project on the subject of stumbling blocks at the Chemnitz Adult Education Centre. As part of their exhibition, they will meet the sponsors of this year's Stolperstein laying ceremony and the members of the Stolpersteine working group. Mayor Dagmar Ruscheinsky welcomes the participants.

Background

Since 2007, the city of Chemnitz has honoured former fellow citizens who were victims of National Socialism with Stumbling Stones. The Stumbling Stones Working Group is responsible for coordinating the Stumbling Stones project under the direction of the City of Chemnitz. The members of the AG Stolpersteine include the Chemnitz branch of the VVN-BdA, the historian Dr Jürgen Nitsche and the Chemnitz City Archive. The worldwide project was launched in 1993 by Cologne artist Gunter Demnig.