Stumbling stones in Chemnitz
Max, Paula Margaretha and Baruch Geller, Bracha Dana
Max Geller
Born: 18 March 1886
Died: 13/09/1961
Paula Margaretha Geller, née Götz
Born: 22/09/1897
Died: 18/02/1963
Bracha Dana, née Geller
Born: 03.08.1922
Died: 14.11.1981
Baruch Geller
Born: 18.05.1928
Died: 21/08/2018
Installation location:
Heinrich-Beck-Straße 7Stumbling stone laying on:
17 May 2022
Life path
The merchant Max Geller left his Galician homeland on the eve of the start of the First World War. He decided to live in the industrial city of Chemnitz, where he initially settled as a commercial agent on the Sonnenberg. In the commercial world, he went by the name Mendel Geller.
On 25 February 1920, Max Geller married Paula Margaretha Götz, a merchant's daughter who was eleven years his junior, in Eger (Bohemia). Her parents lived in Penig until 1910, where her brother Werner was also born. Immediately after their marriage, Max Geller founded a hosiery factory, which was initially based at Heinrich-Beck-Straße 7 in Kaßberg. Just a few months later, he acquired the four-storey building. The couple moved into a flat on the first floor. They went on to have four children: Brigitte Ingeburg, Ruth, Edith and Richard Bernhard. Edith died in the State Women's Hospital at the age of just three months and was buried in the Jewish cemetery in the Altendorf neighbourhood.
As early as 1921, Margaretha Geller became co-owner of the stocking factory, which from then on traded under the name "M. Geller & Co." in the commercial register. The factory was now located on the ground floor of Bismarckstraße 25 before being relocated to an industrial building in Niederzwönitz in 1923. In the midst of the global economic crisis, the company ran into difficulties. As a result, bankruptcy proceedings were opened in March 1929, which were only concluded in September 1932 when the company was liquidated.
Max Geller, who fought in the Second World War, was also politically active in the 1920s and was a member of the "Reich Banner Black-Red-Gold". As a music lover, he led the music band of the Groß-Chemnitz local association. The family emigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine in August 1935. In April 1936, Max Geller reported in the "Jüdische Zeitung für Mittelsachsen" (Chemnitz) about the planned construction of a new settlement near Haifa. The family later took up residence in Kiryat Stand, as the village had been called since 1942. The couple lived in the settlement until their deaths.
Bracha Geller, who was married to Abraham Dana from 1946, died in Haifa in 1981. Ruth Geller moved to Tel Aviv in 1943 and went on to become a successful actress in Israel. She recently spent her retirement with her daughter Elisheva. Baruch Geller married Naomi Simroni in 1958. The siblings' marriages produced six children, who are now married, live with their children in Israel and preserve the family's legacy.
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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