Stumbling stones in Chemnitz
Marek and Tyla Muszkatblat
Marek Muszkatblat
Born: 28 October 1909,
Died: 05.08.1942
Sponsorship: Omas gegen Rechts, local group Chemnitz
Tyla Muszkatblat, née Wajdenbaum
Born: 1911
Died: 03.08.1942
Godparents: Steffen Vogel and Beate Ressel
Place of installation:
Gustav-Freytag-Straße 1Stumbling stone laying on:
6 May 2021
Life path
Marek Muszkatblat came from a Jewish merchant family from Warsaw. The spelling of his surname varied in the official documents: Muschkatblatt or Muszkatblat(t). His parents lived in Warsaw, where their first children were born. The family, who had Russian citizenship, later moved to Dresden. Mordka Muszkatblat, the father, worked there as a textile salesman. After the beginning of the First World War (1914-1918), the Muszkatblats were threatened with deportation to the Russian Empire as enemy aliens. However, the Jewish religious community and the city council of Chemnitz agreed to take in Jews of Russian origin from Dresden and Leipzig. This spared the family an uncertain fate in their home country and they lived in Chemnitz from the end of 1914.
As a result of the collapse of the Tsarist Empire in 1918/19, Marek Muszkatblat's parents lost their Russian citizenship and became Polish citizens. The couple moved several times in Chemnitz until they found a suitable flat in the apartment block at Gustav-Freytag-Strasse 3. However, they only lived in the house, which was owned by the Jewish merchant Edwin Stein, for a few months. In May 1929, Marek Muszkatblat began studying medicine at the University of Leipzig. He became politically active early on, joining the KPD that year. In doing so, he followed his older brother Max, who had taken this step two years earlier. Marek Muszkatblat was exmatriculated by the university authorities on 20 April 1932 because of his communist activities.
Marek Muszkatblat emigrated to France as early as March 1933. From then on, he lived in Paris, where he worked as a leather worker. During this time, he also met Tyla Wajdenbaum, his future wife, and they lived in the 13th arrondissement of Paris. Their son was born in 1934. After the armistice of Compiègne on 22 June 1940, the couple joined the French resistance, the Resistance. Marek (now Marc) Muszkatblat distributed leaflets to members of the Wehrmacht and assumed a different identity. The police pursued his activities. On 2 July 1943, he was discovered by the Brigade Spéciale N°2 (BS2) in his secret accommodation in the 14th arrondissement. However, his false identity card did not save him from arrest and extradition. His wife had already been arrested on 29 July 1942. Independently of each other, the couple were taken to the Drancy concentration camp and deported from there to the Auschwitz extermination camp. Their son survived in hiding.
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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