Stumbling Stones in Chemnitz

Hermann Goldschmidt

Born: 02.02.1862

Died: 03.08.1939

Gertrud Goldschmidt, née Zwicker

Born: 02/02/1889

Died: 11.12.1975

Ruth Goldschmidt

Born: 15.04.1914

Died: 19/03/2000

The merchant Hermann Goldschmidt lived permanently in Chemnitz from 1895. He had previously commuted between Schönebeck and Chemnitz for twelve years as a travelling salesman.
He was born in Sondershausen to the Jewish couple Moritz Goldschmidt and Henriette Traube. His father was a senior teacher at a grammar school in the royal residence town. He had a brother, Adolph, four years his senior, who settled in Chemnitz in 1882 and worked as an authorised signatory for the stocking and glove factory Heidenheim, Oppenheim & Co (see photo). After Gustav Heidenheim retired, Adolph Goldschmidt became co-owner of the company in the summer of 1899. Hermann Goldschmidt was granted power of attorney at the beginning of 1901.

In 1906, Hermann Goldschmidt converted to Protestantism, which was probably related to his brother Adolph's conversion to the Evangelical Lutheran Church. On 20 May 1912, he married Johanna Gertrud Zwicker, a merchant's daughter 27 years his junior, in Leipzig. From then on, the couple lived at Kurfürstenstraße 2 and their only daughter Ruth Mathilde Henriette was born two years later in Chemnitz.

After the sudden death of his brother Adolph on 24 December 1916, Hermann Goldschmidt remained an authorised signatory in the company. However, he lost his well-paid position in the middle of the global economic crisis (1930). From then on, he worked as an independent businessman. The family's financial situation deteriorated as a result. But that was not all: The impending political upheaval changed their lives completely. In Gertrud Goldschmidt's memory, her husband's Jewish origins were the reason for the countless taunts and suffering "that befell us during the Nazi era.
Many people were told to avoid us and everywhere we went we were now regarded as second-class citizens. My husband was forbidden from going to the pub, cinema or theatre. On top of all this, my husband was forced to adopt the name 'Israel' and was in constant danger of being deported one day. Every time the doorbell rang, we were terrified and only his poor health, his age and then his death at the end of 1939 saved him from this. But even his death did not bring peace. The funeral caused us great difficulties. My husband was not to be buried in the municipal cemetery, even though we already had a family grave there. We petitioned for permission, but not even the smallest ceremony was allowed to take place and we were only allowed to say goodbye to our deceased in the small, narrow grave cell." The situation of the widow and daughter improved only briefly. Gertrud Goldschmidt recalled further: In 1944, "all the half-Jews were called up for forced labour in order to have them all together for later deportation. [Ruth] had to go to a knitting factory and knit military gloves. They weren't allowed to eat with the 'Aryans' there, but they were called up for the nightly air-raid watches in the factory."

Gertrud and Ruth Goldschmidt were spared the threat of deportation to Theresienstadt: "Fortunately, the capitulation came to us, but to make matters worse, we were totally bombed out on 5 March [1945]. The women found emergency accommodation in Frankenberg and only returned to Chemnitz after the end of the war.

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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