Welcome address from the Mayor Ralph Burghart
Only the spoken word prevails
Dear Mrs Sachs,
Members of the Bundestag, the Saxon State Parliament, and the Chemnitz City Council,
Citizens of Chemnitz,
Dear guests,
I would like to begin with an entry from the Golden Book oft the City:
"Thank you for your hospitality and warmth - on behalf of all the Franks of Chemnitz. Appreciate the feeling at home. We will never forget."
Ron Frank wrote these lines in the City Hall in 2024. This meeting revived a tradition dating back to 1996 and 1997, when the City of Chemnitz first invited Jewish citizens with roots in our city to return to their former home. The aim was to reconnect and to share family histories, particularly the stories of what happened during the National Socialist era.
This is what Ron Frank wrote, and many other relatives have expressed their gratitude to us in similar ways.
Yet it is us, who should feel fortunate and grateful. We are grateful that so many families have accepted our invitations over the last two years, that collective ideas have been developed, and that we are able to witness this "Stolperstein" laying ceremony today.
I would like to extend a very warm welcome to the descendants of the families Ascher, Benda, Jacoby, Flieg, Frank, Guttman, Kugelmas, Leder, Lichtenstein, Magen, Noskowitz, Sachs, and Schendel. It is wonderful to have you here. Thank you so much for your openness and your willingness to share your family history.
I also welcome Daniel Dost and his supporters from the "Buntmacher" group. For several years, he has been the driving force behind these family reunions. He has spent that time building deep personal relationships with the families, and tomorrow he will open the "Threads" exhibition at the smac archaeology museum as the curator. Thank you for your commitment, Mr Dost, and for the energy and time you have dedicated to this project.
Ladies and gentlemen,
This year's Stolperstein laying is closely linked to the "Threads" exhibition. During this Year of Jewish Culture in Saxony, designated by the state government, the Stolperstein working group decided to carry out two stone-layings in this special commemorative year. In a first for our city, the family histories of the Stolpersteine are now being linked with the exhibition project and this large family gathering. Nineteen stones are being laid today at eight locations across Chemnitz.
Organising two ceremonies in one year means twice the workload. I would like to express my sincere respect to the Stolperstein working group, and particularly to Dr Jürgen Nitsche. It is thanks to them that such intensive research was completed in such a short a time, allowing us to learn about these families in such vivid detail. Thank you, Dr Nitsche.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The Stolperstein project has long since ceased to be an isolated initiative. It now has a deep impact on our local community. Every year on the 9th of November, various groups come together to clean the stones. Students use them to learn more about the history of their own city. Relatives visit them. And every year, sponsors step forward to help fund and implement the project.
For the stone dedicated to Hanna Luise Sachs (née Cohn) which we are about to lay, Nomi Drachinsky and Teresa Pinheiro have kindly acted as sponsors. Thank you very much.
I would like to say a few words about this specific location. As you can see, there are already Stolpersteine here. They were laid in 2014 in memory of Dr Fritz Gabriel Cohn and his wife Flora Margot Cohn. They were the parents of Hanna Luise Sachs and the grandparents of Tana Sachs, who is with us today.
Shortly after the birth of their first daughter, Hanna, they moved into a beautiful house here on Eulitzstraße. Franz Cohn, the younger brother, described it as follows:
"A five-storey nineteenth-century building without a lift, with a large six-room flat on the ground floor. We lived on the first floor. Margot had a cook and maid, Johanne, and a nanny, Dora, to help her. In addition, Mrs Krüger came to do the washing and ironing. All this help was needed to run the old-fashioned household with three children and a large circle of family and friends."
The Kaßberg district was a popular residential area, especially with the Jewish population. A third of all our Stolpersteine are located here. The synagogue was only a few streets away and the factories lined Zwickauer Straße. In many corners of the Kaßberg, the proud and successful Chemnitz of the early 20th century is still tangible today. Sadly, the five-storey house on Eulitzstraße is gone, destroyed by a bomb in 1945.
The Stolpersteine now serve as a memorial to the fate of the Cohn family. Dr Fritz Gabriel Cohn, a lawyer, was among the 186 Jewish men arrested in Chemnitz during the November pogroms of 1938 and taken into "protective custody" at Buchenwald. In 1939, he and his wife Flora Margot fled to Norway. They were both arrested there on the 26th of October 1942 and subsequently deported to Auschwitz, where they were murdered. Dr Nitsche will tell us more shortly about the life of their daughter, Hanna Luise Sachs.
I must reiterate how important today is for us. In our city, 360 Stolpersteine commemorate the people who lived here until 1945 and were murdered, persecuted, or driven out by the Nazi regime. Through these ceremonies, we remember their lives, and together we set out to understand our history and to shape a different future.
Thank you to everyone who is here today and to those who will join us at the subsequent locations.
Thank you to Andreas Winkler for the musical accompaniment, and I am very grateful to Tana Sachs for sharing her words with us.
I would now like to warmly invite you to join us as we move on to the other locations for today's ceremony. The next laying will take place on Agricolastraße, which is only a few minutes' walk from here.
Further information regarding the project can also be found on our website at www.chemnitz.de/stolpersteine.
There will be another round of stone-layings this autumn. If you would like to support the project or become a sponsor, we would be delighted to hear from you.
Thank you for coming, and I wish you a pleasant day.