Stumbling stones in Chemnitz
Jacob, Jenny and Werner Ludwig Metsch
Jacob Metsch
Born: 19 November 1880
Died: after 10 May 1942
Godmother: Susen Döbelt
Jenny Metsch, née Kupferberg
Born: 21.12.1895
Died: after 10 May 1942
Godmother: Astrid Günther and Stefan Nobis
Werner Ludwig Metsch
Born: 21/02/1924
Died: after 27.02.1943
Godfather: Peer Fiedler
Installation location:
Stollberger Straße 25Stumbling stone laying on:
6 May 2021
Life path
The merchant Jacob Metsch came from Czernowitz, the capital of the former cultural landscape of Bukovina in today's Ukraine. He lived in Chemnitz from 1916. He was department manager at the department stores' H. & C. Tietz department store, where he was responsible for leather, writing and gallantry goods. On 28 July 1919, he married Jenny Kupferberg, the daughter of the merchants Max and Bertha Kupferberg.
Mr and Mrs Metsch had two sons: Heinz Bernhard and Werner Ludwig. The family lived in the house at Pornitzstraße 1 until 1936, when they found a new home on Kapellenberg at Stollberger Straße 39. Jenny Metsch was particularly committed to the interests of Jewish women after 1933. For this reason, she was elected to the last board of the Chemnitz chapter of the Jewish Women's Association in June 1938. During the November pogroms of 1938, Jacob Metsch was taken into "protective custody" and deported to the special camp in Buchenwald. After his return on 16 December 1938, he made preparations to emigrate: In June 1939, he wanted to emigrate to Shanghai with his wife and younger son. The tickets had already been paid for.
On 15 April 1942, the couple were forced to move to the "Jews' house" at Apollostrasse 18. On 10 May 1942, Jenny and Jacob Metsch were deported to the Belzyce ghetto near Lublin.
Werner, a talented blacksmith, continued his professional training after 1939 in the Jewish training workshops in Hamburg. After its closure, he returned to Chemnitz, where he was forced to work for the company E. & F. Barthel in Altchemnitz from 18 November 1941. On 27 February 1943, Werner Metsch - together with Justin Sonder - was deported to Auschwitz via the Hellerberg camp near Dresden and murdered there.
Bernhard was able to emigrate to England in April 1939. At the beginning of the war, he was imprisoned by the military authorities as an "enemy alien". After his release, he became a soldier in the British armed forces and therefore changed his name to Henry Bernard Morgan. He married in Leicester in September 1944. After the end of the war, he lived with his wife in Manchester, where their children Peter and Judith were born. Henry B. Morgan died in August 1995 and his son Peter Morgan welcomed the laying of the Stolpersteine in Chemnitz.
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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