Stumbling Stones in Chemnitz
Rosalie, Johanna, Bernhard and Harry Kamnitzer
Rosalie Kamnitzer, née Berger
Born: 04.06.1860
Died: 07.10.1942
Sponsor: Vollkasko-Massivhaus Chemnitz GmbH Town & Country licence partner
Johanna Kamnitzer
Born: 19.02.1879
Died: after 10.05.1942
Godmother: Beate Legler
Bernhard Kamnitzer
Born: 24.03.1885
Died: 12.10.1942
Godparents: Dr Carsten Czenkusch and Marion Czenkusch
Harry Kamnitzer
Born: 05.12.1888
Died: 31.01.1943
Godfather: Matthias Legler
Installation location:
Barbarossastrasse 55Stumbling stone laying on:
5 October 2020
Life path
The Kamnitzer family was one of the Jewish families in Chemnitz for whom emigration was impossible. Bernhard Kamnitzer was the first member of the family to move to Chemnitz. His parents were Gerson and Rosalie Kamnitzer, who lived in West Prussia. Bernhard, also called Benno, stayed in Görlitz until the autumn of 1907. At this time, his uncle Max Berger was already a successful entrepreneur in Chemnitz. He had founded a hosiery factory 20 years earlier. From then on, Bernhard Kamnitzer worked for him as a travelling salesman.
Rosalie Kamnitzer, his widowed mother, moved to Chemnitz in the mid-1920s. Her unmarried daughter Johanna accompanied her. From then on, they lived on the ground floor of the house at Barbarossastrasse 55. A few years later, their younger son, the buyer Harry Kamnitzer, also moved to Saxony. In June 1932, Bernhard Kamnitzer founded his own company - Maxonia Wirkwaren GmbH - together with the businessman Franz Breslauer. The managing directors maintained numerous contacts abroad, reaching as far as South Africa.
The Nazi seizure of power meant persecution and extermination for the family. Bernhard Kamnitzer was unable to prevent his young company from being dissolved. In January 1940, he married the divorced Judith Paretzkin, who came from the Ukraine. His wife emigrated to the USA a few weeks later. Bernhard Kamnitzer stayed behind in Chemnitz. A "regrouping" in Berlin did not help him to emigrate to Palestine either. After his return, he was accommodated in the house at Friedrichstraße 5. From then on, he had to live in cramped conditions with his 81-year-old mother and siblings in the rear courtyard of the building, which had previously housed the Balkind shoe shop.
From there, Rosalie Kamnitzer and her sons were deported to Theresienstadt on 7 September 1942. Her daughter had already been deported to the East on 10 May 1942.
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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