The City of Chemnitz mourns the loss of its honorary citizen Siegmund Rotstein, who has died at the age of 94.
Lord Mayor Barbara Ludwig:
"I am very sad - as are many Chemnitz residents who knew Siegmund Rotstein. My deepest sympathy goes out to his family. When I think of Siegmund Rotstein, I remember a clever and kind man full of warmth. He worked tirelessly for the Jewish community in Chemnitz, of which he was chairman for 40 years. It is thanks to his unwavering courage and perseverance that Jewish life in Chemnitz once again has such an important place. In Siegmund Rotstein, we have lost one of the last contemporary witnesses of the Holocaust, who made it his mission to tell future generations. We will miss him very much."
Siegmund Rotstein was born on 30 November 1925 to Jewish parents in Chemnitz. He was not granted a happy childhood in peace and quiet, as his family and many of his friends were subjected to reprisals by those in power when the National Socialists seized power in 1933 at the latest: Ostracism, persecution, the lack of personal freedom: from the age of 8, this was part of his sad everyday life. He survived deportation to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. It was these terrible experiences that had a lasting impact on him and on which his deeply humanistic actions were based.
53 members still belonged to the Jewish community in Chemnitz after the war. Siegmund Rotstein was one of them. Leaving his hometown was out of the question. In September 1945, he co-founded the Jewish community in Chemnitz after the Holocaust.
The Jewish community was at the centre of his life. From 1959, initially on the community council, he was its chairman from 1966 for 40 years until 2006. Siegmund Rotstein has been Honorary Chairman of the Jewish community of Chemnitz since 2007. It was thanks to him that Jewish traditions and beliefs could be actively practised in Karl-Marx-Stadt and Chemnitz even after 1945 and that they have always endured.
After German reunification, it was thanks to his tireless commitment that Chemnitz became a new home for over 500 members of the community who had moved there.
But Siegmund Rotstein was not only committed to Jewish life in his Chemnitz: from 1969 to 1988 as Vice President and from 1988 to 1990 as President of the Jewish communities in the GDR, from 1990 to 2001 as Chairman of the Saxony State Association of Jewish Communities and from 1991 to 2001 as a member of the Board of Directors of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.
In 2002, one of his favourite projects, which he had been working on for years together with the city of Chemnitz, came to fruition. After the National Socialists destroyed the synagogue on Stephansplatz in the Reichsprogramnacht of 1938, the new synagogue on Stollberger Straße was opened. Today, it stands as a symbol of active and living Judaism in Chemnitz. This would not have been possible without Siegmund Rotstein's perseverance and commitment.
In 2003, he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. Siegmund Rotstein was awarded honorary citizenship on 16 May 2007 for his services to the preservation of Jewish life in Karl-Marx-Stadt and Chemnitz.
