Stumbling Stones in Chemnitz
Leo Sonder
Leo Sonder
Born: 03/03/1899
Died: 06.01.1949
Godmother: Kerstin Claus
Installation location:
Zschopauer Straße 74Stumbling stone laying on:
6 May 2021
Life path
Together with his son Justin, Leo Sonder was one of the few Jews from Chemnitz who survived the "hell of Auschwitz". Both also attended the meeting in the Ebersdorf district on 7 September 1945, at which the Jewish community was re-established.
Leo Sonder was a merchant. He was born in Lower Franconia, the son of a master butcher. After attending secondary school, Leo Sonder began a commercial apprenticeship, which he interrupted in 1917 when he joined the army as a one-year volunteer. In August 1918, he was seriously wounded by a bullet to the lung, but was able to recover. His demobilisation was followed by the completion of his apprenticeship and his entry into working life. During this time, he also joined the German Social Democratic Party.
Leo Sonder left his home in May 1923 and worked as a wine merchant in Chemnitz until 1938. He married Zita Stern in Würzburg at the end of 1924. Their son Justin was born soon afterwards. From 1934, the family lived together at Lindenstraße 1. During the November pogroms of 1938, Leo Sonder was one of the few Jews from Chemnitz who managed to avoid arrest. He hid for a while with acquaintances in Saxon Switzerland. From then on, he was conscripted into forced labour, most recently at the E. F. Barthel lamp factory. The family was expelled from their beloved home and sent to the "Jews' house" at Zschopauer Straße 74.
On 8 September 1942, the couple were deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto and from there to Auschwitz on 29 January 1943. Zita Sonder, already weakened by illness, did not survive the first few hours in Birkenau. On 18 January 1945, Leo Sonder was sent on a death march that took him to Sachsenhausen, Flossenbürg and Dachau, among other places, where he was liberated by the U.S. Army on 30 April 1945. From August 1945, Leo Sonder worked as a trustee for expropriated businesses and later acquired a laundry in Kaßberg. In November 1945, he entered into a second marriage with Hertha Müller, a daughter of the former Saxon Minister of the Interior Max Müller.
In January 1948, he became a member of the board of the Jewish community and from then on was responsible for cemetery matters. On 6 January 1949, Leo Sonder died of the late effects of the inhumane prison conditions in Auschwitz and was buried three days later in the Jewish cemetery in the Altendorf district.
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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