Stumbling Stones in Chemnitz
Max, Charlotte and Siegfried Neger
Max Negro
Born: 06.07.1886
Died: after 30 June 1941
Godmother: Karla Müller
Charlotte Neger, née Rieger
Born: 30.04.1881
Died: after 30 June 1941
Godfather: Martin Niemann
Siegfried Neger
Born: 01.10.1913
Died: after 30.06.1941
Sponsorship: Pupils and teachers of the Georgius-Agricola-Gymnasium
Place of installation:
Gustav-Freytag-Straße 26Stumbling stone laying on:
6 May 2021
Life path
The merchant Max Meschulim Neger was born on 6 July 1886 in Kolomea, a town in what is now Ukraine. He moved to Chemnitz with his parents in the summer of 1909, initially to set up a business selling stockings and gloves. On 10 December 1911, he married CharlotteScheindel Rieger, five years his senior, in Franzensbad (Bohemia). From then on, the couple lived in Chemnitz, most recently at Apollostrasse 25. Their only son Siegfried was born on 1 October 1913. He later attended the Realgymnasium. Max Neger traded in paintings during this time.
In the 1920s, he and the merchant Sigmund Hecht founded a small hosiery factory. At that time, Max Neger also supported the work of the Jewish Support Association. As Polish citizens, the Neger couple and their son Siegfried were deported to Poland on 28 October 1938. They settled in the city of Lemberg (Lwów) and now belonged to the Jewish community there.
From then on, Max Neger worked as a fitter for the army construction department. Siegfried Neger worked as a labourer in a private company. In April 1939, Charlotte Neger was allowed to return to Chemnitz for a limited period in order to liquidate her business and flat. She returned to Poland in June 1939. As a result of the German-Soviet non-aggression pact, Lviv became part of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic in September 1939.
At that time, around 150,000 Jews lived in the city, including the Neger family. Eugen Nussberg, a close relative, received a last sign of life from Max Neger in 1940. After Lviv was occupied by the German Wehrmacht on 30 June 1941, the family's trail was lost. The occupation sparked a pogrom atmosphere in the city, which was mainly directed against the Jewish civilian population.
Around 4,000 Jews died in mass murders in the first few days, some of them in "spontaneous" riots by Ukrainian militias and civilians in the city, but most of them in an organised mass execution by the German Einsatzgruppe on the outskirts of Lviv on 4 July 1941. Whether Max, Charlotte and Siegfried Neger were killed at the beginning of July 1941 or later is not known. What is certain, however, is that almost all Lviv Jews were murdered in the years that followed, including in the Lviv collection camp set up by the Nazis. In 1940, no trace of the Neger family is found.
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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