Stumbling Stones in Chemnitz
Hermann and Rosa Brod
Hermann Brod
Born: 30 May 1882
Died: after August 1948
Godparents: Dr Peter Rheinbay and Barbara Rheinbay (Düsseldorf)
Rosa Brod, née Silberberg
Born: 16.01.1895
Died: 05.04.1937
Godparents: Dr Peter Rheinbay and Barbara Rheinbay (Düsseldorf)
Installation location:
Ulmenstraße 44Stumbling stone laying on:
5 October 2020
Life path
Mr and Mrs Brod were among the Chemnitz Jews who traded in foodstuffs. Hermann Brod came from Mariampol (now Ukraine). His parents were Nathan Brod and Helene Stretiner. The egg trader Nathan Brod had moved to Leipzig with his family in the mid-1890s. Around 1907, Hermann Brod married Rosa Silberberg. The couple moved to Chemnitz at this time. There he followed in his father's footsteps and opened an egg shop in the city centre.
Three daughters were born in the following years: Ida, Jenny and Ruth. Brod quickly established himself in the local business world. In autumn 1914, he acquired the house at Holzmarkt 6 and also moved his business there. From 1917, the family lived on the first floor of the house at Ulmenstraße 44, which became the merchant's property a few years later.
In the post-war period (1920), Brod temporarily gave up his business and tried his hand as a hosiery manufacturer. In 1925, he felt the time was right to open an egg shop again. From 1930, Brod supplied the Schocken department stores' with his eggs. Brod's food business was also badly affected by the Nazi boycott measures of 1 April 1933. The couple therefore decided to give up the business and leave the country. They initially lived in Leipzig for a while. In autumn 1936, they emigrated to Barcelona. Ultimately, however, the couple decided to live in the south of France.
However, their new start there was not under a good star. Rosa Brod died "under tragic circumstances" on 5 April 1937 in Luchon, as her husband wrote in an obituary for the "Jüdische Zeitung für Mittelsachsen". She was buried in a cemetery in Toulouse. Hermann Brod continued to live in France. One last trace leads to the municipality of Castres in Occitania in August 1948. The house at Ulmenstraße 44 was destroyed during the air raids on the city on 3 March 1945.
Stumbling Stones in Chemnitz
It is a project against forgetting: stumbling stones have been laid in Chemnitz every year since 2007.
Embedded in the pavement, the memorial stones commemorate the tragic fates of fellow citizens who were persecuted, deported, murdered or driven to their deaths during the National Socialist regime.
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