Stumbling Stones in Chemnitz
Gerhart Heinz and Ingeburg Sigler
Gerhart Heinz Sigler
Born: 05.04.1921
Died: 31.05.2015
Ingeburg Sigler
Born: 22/02/1927
Died: 18/11/2000
Place of installation:
Gerhart-Hauptmann-Platz 2Stumbling stone laying on:
17 May 2022
Life path
Gerhart and Ingeburg Sigler were the children of Arthur and Hedwig Sigler, in memory of whom two Stolpersteine were laid in the same place last year.
The parents had tied the knot in Prague on 27 June 1920. Gerhart was born there nine months later. In November 1921, the family moved to Chemnitz, where their daughter Ingeburg was born five and a half years later. Her parents were delighted to announce the "birth of a strong girl" in the "Chemnitzer Tageblatt". The family lived at Gerhart-Hauptmann-Platz 2 until January 1939. Gert, as everyone called him, attended the Heinrich Beck School.
24 March 1934 was a memorable day for him - despite the terror directed against the Jews, which the National Socialists had been unleashing since the spring of 1933. He became a bar mitzvah and was thus accepted into the ranks of the members of the Jewish religious community. Inge, as she was affectionately called by her relatives, was now also attending the Heinrich Beck School, and Gert transferred to the Oberrealschule on the Kaßberg, which was now called the Hans Schemm School, where he left school in 1937 with an intermediate school-leaving certificate. In retrospect, he recalled: "The last years at school were terrible. At times I was the only Jew. On the instructions of the headmaster, Dr Johannes Lohße, no one was allowed to speak to me. He often gave anti-Semitic speeches." After his expulsion, as he saw it himself, he attended the Dr Leonore Goldschmidt School, a private Jewish school in Berlin. The November pogroms of 1938 meant the end of his schooling for him too.
Inge had to leave primary school at Easter 1938 due to her Jewish background. Instead of becoming a pupil at the Höhere Mädchenbildungsanstalt, she was forced to attend the special Jewish classes at the Brühlschule. Her father was arrested during the November pogroms of 1938 and deported to Buchenwald. When Gert learnt of this in Berlin, he was determined to leave Germany. With the help of the Kindertransport, he was able to emigrate to England via Hamburg on 30 January 1939. In order to get a place, he had made himself one year younger when registering. When he said goodbye to his parents and sister in Berlin
he had no idea that he would only see Inge again soon.
Six months later, twelve-year-old Inge was also able to leave the country with the help of a Kindertransport. She travelled from Leipzig with Annemarie Heidenheim, her friend from Chemnitz. On 11 August 1939, she arrived in England together with 170 children on board a passenger ship. Gerhart Sigler, who later called himself Gerry, lived with his wife Gisela and their children Janet and Nickolas
in London until his death seven years ago. The couple visited Chemnitz in June 1999 for the "Days of Jewish Culture".
Inge Sigler moved to Rome around 1960, before moving to Haifa (Israel) a few years later. She remained unmarried for the rest of her life.
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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