Stumbling stones in Chemnitz
Gustav and Martha Paula Glaser
Gustav Glaser
Born: 08.03.1889
Died: 14.02.1945
Sponsors: The classes Holunder and Lärche of the Montessori School Chemnitz
Martha Paula Glaser, née Leißner
Born: 17.03.1898
Died: 14.02.1945
Godparents: Silvia and Florian Ziesch
Installation location:
Kopernikusstraße 16Stumbling stone laying on:
5 October 2020
Life path
The sales representative Gustav Glaser was born in Lindenberg near Berlin (now part of the municipality of Ahrensfelde). He moved to Siegmar-Schönau in the 1920s. As a former participant in the Second World War, he was involved in the "Schild" sports club, which had been founded by the Reichsbund jüdischer Frontsoldaten. On 24 May 1928, Glaser married the technical draughtswoman Martha Paula Leißner, who came from a Protestant family of factory owners in Chemnitz. Their marriage remained childless.
The Nazi takeover also had consequences for the couple. Gustav Glaser was no longer allowed to work as a sales representative. An agricultural retraining programme was supposed to help him leave the country in 1939. At the time, he intended to emigrate to South America with his wife. He was even prepared to emigrate to Shanghai.
But the plans were cancelled. The couple had to give up their flat in Schönau and were billeted with the former factory owner Hugo Sussmann. From then on, Gustav Glaser had to carry out forced labour for the municipal gardening department. In this capacity, he was responsible for the "maintenance" of the Jewish cemetery in Altendorf, among other things.
From June 1940, he was also employed as a "gymnastics teacher" at the request of the private Jewish primary school, some of whose classes were held in the municipal cemetery. After the school closed in the summer of 1942, he was forced by the Nazi authorities to perform forced labour at the E. F. Barthel lamp factory.
At the end of 1944, the couple were forced to move to the "Jews' house" at Hermann-Fischer-Strasse 5 (formerly Zimmerstrasse) in the city centre. From there, Gustav Glaser and 56 other Jews from the district (including Siegmund Rotstein sel. A.) were to be deported to Theresienstadt on 14 February 1945. However, he was the only one who did not turn up for the alleged "labour assignment" in the inner courtyard of the State Academy of Technology. Fearing an "uncertain future", he poisoned himself in his forced accommodation in the early evening. Out of love, Martha Glaser followed her husband to his death. Her mortal remains were cremated in the crematorium on 18 February 1945. Whether the urns were buried in the municipal cemetery in Bernsdorf can only be surmised in view of the air raids at the time.
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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