Stumbling Stones in Chemnitz
Wolf, Regina, Hertha, Herbert and Erich Karl Joseph
Wolf Joseph
Born: 10 October 1859
Died: 23 October 1942
Regina Joseph, née Krotoschin
Born: 17.05.1862
Died: 22/03/1940
Hertha Richter, née Joseph
Born: 09.02.1889
Died: after 13.07.1942
Herbert Joseph
Born: 15/03/1891
Died: 17.12.1941
Erich Karl Joseph
Born: 16/03/1892
Died: 05.08.1941
Installation location:
Agricolastrasse 9Stumbling stone laying on:
14 June 2023
Photos of the laying of the Stumbling Stones
Life path
The merchant Wolf Joseph lived in Chemnitz intermittently from the spring of 1878. He belonged to the Jewish religious community for more than 60 years.
He was born in Crone an der Brahe (province of Posen). He came from Berlin in the spring of 1878 and initially worked as a travelling salesman for various Jewish companies. After an absence of several years, Wolf Joseph returned to Chemnitz at the beginning of 1885 and became co-owner of "Hugo Rentzsch Nachf.", a wholesale company for trimmings founded a year earlier and based at Lange Straße 36. After the departure of his business partner, he became the sole owner of the company in 1889, which later mainly sold upholstery fabrics and curtains. Wolf Joseph had already married Regina Krotoschin from Poznan in Coburg in April 1888. The couple had four children: Hertha, Elsa, Herbert and Erich.
In July 1914, Hertha married the Berlin merchant Max Moritz Richter, who was eleven years her senior. This marriage produced two sons: Gerhard and Edgar Jürgen Jakob. After their divorce in 1920, she moved back to Chemnitz with her sons and lived with her parents at Agricolastrasse 2. In 1939, the brothers emigrated to Palestine. Hertha Richter stayed behind with her parents in Chemnitz. She was deported to the East on 13 July 1942. Her three siblings remained unmarried. Herbert began working as an authorised signatory in his father's business in 1919, one year after his discharge from the army. In autumn 1921, he founded his own company, the mechanical weaving mill "Lica". The weaving mill was located in Lichtenstein. The company was based in Chemnitz, also at Lange Straße 36. On 12 April 1938, the factory owner was arrested and sent to Zwickau prison. In the same year, he was forced to sell his business to a company in Lichtenstein while already in prison. In 1940/41, Herbert Joseph was transferred to Buchenwald concentration camp, where he died on 17 December 1941.
Erich also fought in the world war. He later worked as a travelling salesman for his brother's company. During the pogroms, he was taken into "protective custody" on 12 November 1938 and transferred to Dachau, where he remained until 12 May 1939. After he was arrested again, he was sent to Sachsenhausen on 27 June 1940. From there he was transferred to Dachau on 16 September 1940. He was transferred from Dachau to Buchenwald on 12 July 1941, where he "died" on 5 August 1941.
His parents were forced to live in the "Jews' house" at Agricolastrasse 9. Regina Joseph died in the night of 22 March 1940 as a result of a tragic household accident. She was the first to be buried in the family's burial plot at the Jewish cemetery in Altendorf. The widowed Wolf Joseph, already almost blind, had to give in to the pressure of the Chemnitz district court in June 1941 and agree to the deletion of his company from the commercial register, which took place in February 1942. During this time, he also had to move frequently, most recently to the Jewish retirement home on Antonplatz. A few months later, Wolf Joseph died there on 23 October 1942 as a result of the hostilities and deprivations and was also buried in the family grave.
Only Elsa Joseph was able to reach safety. She emigrated to England in March 1939 and lived in London until 1950. She then moved in with her nephews in Haifa (Israel), where she died in 1972.
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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